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PHILOSOPHICAL REMARKS 



ON THE 



CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 



By the Rev. /. MOIR, A. M. 

CURATE AND LECTURER OF ST. DIONIS 
BACK CHURCH. ^ 

^1 



PHILADELPHIA, 

PRINTED BY T. ^ G. PALMER, 
116, HIGH STREET. 

1807. 



t 




.lit 



THE Editor^ while he apologizes 
to his subscribers for the unavoidable delay 
which has attended the publication of this 
work^ wishes also to express his gratitude 
for the liberal aid given to hi?n, and his re- 
gret that the names of all his subscribers 
have not been received in time to render the 
list complete. 

The design of_ this publication is., in 
the first place^ to instruct and improve^ as 
XV ell as to amuse its readers; and., in the 
next^ to raise a fund for an object of benevo- 
lence. The merit of the work itself will ^ he 
is confident, insure success to his first object, 
and the piety and generosity of his readers, 
in promotifig its circulation, xvill prevent 
disappointment in the second, 

Philadelphia, June, 
1807. 



1 



SUBSCRIBERS' NAMES. 



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d,^. 



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Charleston Library Soci» 

ety 
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subscribers' names. 



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ANALYSIS. 



Fhe Human Soul. Pa^e 

Part First - - 1 

Part Second - . 15 

Part Third - - 30 

Philosophy of a Plebeian Israelite. 

Part First . _ - 55 

Part Second - - 81 

The Majesty of the Gospel - 99 

In its Design - . I02 

In its Analogy to Nature - 104, 

In its Grandeur and Sublimity 107 

In its Adoption of Natural Religion 1 12 

Conclusion - - 214 

The Gospel our only Hope - 115 

Expostulation - 128 

. Experience substantiates Religion 135 

Merciful Requisitions of the Gospel 144 

Divine Perfection the best Standard of 

Morals - - 158 



ANALYSIS. 






Page 


Christianity realized 


171 


Probation 


175 


Purity- 


181 


Beauty of Holiness 


186 


Immolations 


193 


Piety triumphant 


198 


Providence 


204 


Benign Influence of Heaven 


205 


Terrestrial Accommodation 


214 


Consolation 


219 


Practical Corollaries 


222 


Emptiness of earthly Treasures - 


230 


Unattainable 


234 


Unsuitable 


237 


Worthless 


241 


Cautions 


' 247 


Afflictions - - - 


250 


Patience r - - 


266 


Defined 


267 


An Apologue 


271 


111 Humour 


274 


Trouble 


282 


Expectation 


291 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 



PART FIRST. 



MAN'S nature is the surest index to his 
wants. It is only from what he feels he 
can best know what he needs. In this 
manner inferior animals are guided, with- 
out danger of error or deceit, in the habitual 
pursuit of appetite. The beasts of the field, 
the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, 
never hesitate in preferring the food fittest 
for their palates and their health. And to 
that hereditary corruption which depresses 
and deforms our race, and of which the 
great and good have always and every 

B 



2 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

where bitterly complained, it must be 
owing, that the dictates of reason are not 
uniformly as infallible and direct as those 
of instinct. 

Consult, O man! thy wonderful capa- 
cities, propensities, and prospects, and do 
homage to the genius by which thou art 
exalted above every living thing ! Thy in- 
tellect is but a little lower than angels, 
brightened by the lineaments of its Maker, 
and impregnated with the seeds of immor- 
tality ! Among all the curious and diversi- 
lied forms of animated dust which float on 
thy sight, and compose the vast circle of 
material existence, which of them, in its 
nature, powers, or tendency, approximates 
to that principle within thee ; which per- 
ceives and compares, reasons and con- 
cludes ; which bears not the most distant 
resemblance to the properties of body, and 
which cannot originate in any modification 
of quantity, or any collision of atoms ? 

Mind constitutes the individual, is all he 
is or may be, and without which he cannot 
be happy. It is not the eye that sees the 



THE HUMAN SOUL* 5 

beauties of creation, nor the ear that is ra- 
vished with the sweetest music, or flung 
into ecstacy by the happiest tidings of good 
things to come. These are acts of the soul, 
who alone is capable of enjoying and suf- 
fering. What is that curious system of 
organs which she animates and exercises, 
but the vehicle of her pain, or the minister 
of her pleasure ! From her the whole ma- 
chine derives its primary impulse ; its uni- 
ty, its direction, its dignity, and its use I 
Among the objects of sense, w^hat so 
base or loathsome as a body without a 
soul ! and it is her's to endow the ugliest 
with beauty, the weakest with strength, 
and the most despicable with respectabi- 
lity. 

Indeed, all corporal beings are intrinsi- 
cally frail and perishing. Like the flow- 
ers of the field, they are soon ripe and 
soon rotten ! The universe exhibits no qua- 
lity apart from spirit, that is not corrupti- 
ble. Dissolution terminates the proudest 
and most permanent composition of the 
elements. Every animal has a specific 



4 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

time allotted for the completion of its parts, 
and fulfilling its task. Productions in the 
vegetable world describe a similar circle, 
and are extinct. 

The mental faculties of man are subject 
to no such limitation, but evidently sus- 
ceptible of improvement, without measure 
and without end. All excess of indulgence 
terminates in satiety and pain. The pur- 
suits of the passions are delusive and fatal, 
in proportion as they are ardent and violent ; 
and every acquisition merely temporary is 
an insult to those wishes which are nearest 
the heart. But of the accessioh of useful 
kno^dedge, and* the growth of substantial 
worth, the progress is as delightful as it 
is gradual ; and the more wg attain, our 
desires and capacities for further and higher 
degrees are but the more extended and en- 
larged ! 

This is the great master- spring in our 
system, by which the happiness and per- 
fection of the individual and the race are 
ultimately secured. We are impelled by 
a succession of inquisitive powers, which 



THE HUMAN SOUL; 57 

keep our heads and hearts in perpetual fer- 
ment, to rest in no acquisition. Objects 
of superlative excellence constantly bear on 
our view, and excite pursuit. And though 
the eye be weary of seeing, the ear of hear- 
ing, and all our senses of their respective 
functions, the heart is never debilitated by 
new desires, while the understanding actu- 
ally gathers strength from every increase of 
science. 

So far as we are able to comprehend the 
visible machinery of the universe, its con- 
stituent parts, various and complicated as 
they are, appear admirably calculated, not 
only for acting in concert with each other, 
but also for answering with astonishing ex- 
actness their several destinations ! It is this 
wonderful and uniform fitness in whatever 
comes under our cognizance, that forms 
one of the most striking and discriminating 
features of nature. Nothing, amidst an in- 
finite multitude of worlds and productions, 
seems without design, or unequal to the 
-obvious intention of its being. Every thing 
^t is, suits with precision the place^ the 

b2 



6 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

sphere, the object for which it was formed. 
All is harmony, consistency, proportion, 
and grace, through the whole of the divine 
plan; and from the meanest to the most 
magnificent works of God. The adaption 
or contiguity between cause and effect is 
every where the same, and in all things 
equally exquisite and perfect. The lily is 
calculated to embellish the bank and par- 
terre with its charms, the rose to perfume 
the air with its fragrance, the vine to sup- 
ply the vintage with grapes, the sun to rule 
the day, the moon and stars to illuminate 
the night; and the seasons, as they run 
their successive rounds, to cherish and ma- 
ture the fruits of the earth, to crown the 
year with the goodness of God, to glad- 
den our hearts with plenty, and fill our 
mouths with praise ! 

These ends give a satisfactory account of 
the means by which they are accomplished. 
Their perfection, like ours, consists in per- 
forming that for which they are appointed. 
Their existence therefore ceases with their 
utility ; as Nature, with her usua} frugality, 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 7 

employs her agents no longer than her work 
is finished. 

But for the capacity of the soul, apart 
from its immortality, there can be no ade- 
quate solution. Not all the trophies of arts 
and science which adorn and enrich society, 
and all the monuments of legislative wis- 
dom which distinguish the most enlighten- 
ed nations, ages, and individuals ; nor even 
all the virtues which, in some of the hap- 
piest situations, occupied by the finest ta- 
lents, and blessed with the highest culture, 
have shed peculiar lustre on human con- 
duct, exhaust the power she inherits and 
occasionally displays! They are few com- 
paratively, among the children of men, 
who arrive at any share in the exercise of 
these superlative endowments. Such a cul- 
tivated state of intellect as is competent to 
the production of effects thus eminent and 
illustrious, can never become general in 
this world. But as one may certainly be 
as capable as another, and there is no dif- 
ference in individuals which does not origi- 
nate in contingency or industry; or both, 



8 _ THE HUMAN SOUL. 

would it coincide with the invariable eco. 
nomy of nature, and the immutable good- 
ness of her Maker, that beings thus qua- 
lified should be thus short lived, or that 
the duration of their existence should not 
bear some proportion to the extent of their 
faculties ? 

Such is that sublime principle of intel- 
ligence which imparts immortality to mor- 
tals, and cheers our benighted habitations 
with the dawnings of eternal day ! And 
yet there are, even among the votaries c£ 
genius and philosophy, who would rob us 
of this glorious distinction, and all the con- 
solations it involves. Enemies of our hopes 
and of yours, what pleasure can you reap 
from our pain? what felicity enjoy in the 
creation of misery ? Cruel men ! ye im- 
prove and occupy your talents to debase 
them, and are wise and witty to your own 
ruin ! Ye would deprive the lame of his 
crutches, the blind of his guide, the parch- 
ed traveller of the cooling stream and the 
shadowy grove, and the mariner, who has- 
Jpiig grappled in a stormy ocean with w^nt' 



THE HUMAN SOU^. 9 

and weakness, of the friendly port which 
invites him to safety and repose ! Your 
dogmas are hostile to the sweetest breathings 
of the heart, leave the species destitute and 
deplorable, impeach the benignity of Nature, 
and charge the government of the world with 
partiality. 

Thus accomplished and wonderful is that 
spirit which the great Father of Spirits 
breathed into the first man, and which, 
notwithstanding the degeneracy of his off- 
spring, is still more or less in all, as the 
inspiration of the Almighty ! The body, 
composed of the grosser elements, is of the 
earthy earthy. We dwell in houses of clay, 
whose foundation is in the dust; but the 
soul is evidently of divine extraction, spiri- 
tual in her nature, and heavenly in her aim. 
We are curiously and xvonderfully made in 
every part of our external frame ; but, like 
the. king's daughter, all glorious within! 
The one seems altogether contrived for the 
service and accommodation of the other; 
and the other, loaded and confined by mor- 
tality, is like a bird in a cage, a captive in 



10 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

a foreign land, or a prisoner in his cell oi 
his dungeon, as distant from the scenes 
she prefers, perhaps as low and reduced, 
as ill used, as" disconsolate, and as melan- 
choly ! 

Here let us pause a moment, and consider 
well this curious epitome of the intellectual 
system. Absolutely independent of all those 
elements which constitute the essence of 
sensual things, it partakes of the nature, 
the freedom, the immortality, and the in- 
telligence of Deity. What is human reason, 
when most improved and best applied, in 
its highest perfection and brightest lustre, 
but an emanation of infinite wisdom, de- 
based indeed and darkened by the gross- 
ness of the medium through which it is 
seen, yet clear enough to demonstrate 
whence and what it is, to whom allied, and 
by whom bestowed ! It is not in this state 
of mental debility, or with capacities im- 
perfect and erroneous, we can pretend to 
measure its force in acting, grdour of sen- 
timent, or extent of talent. Here its nature 
eludes our closest inspection ; and the 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 11 

more we search, the more it is involved in 
impenetrable mystery. All its fires are re- 
pressed by the clay- cold shell which hides 
it from our view,; all its movements clog- 
ged and circumscribed by the chains and 
fetters of mortality which drag and fasten 
it to the earth. Its various energies are 
more or less bounded by this sphere, to 
which, from its present situation, it is neces- 
sarily attached ; or this is the cell to which 
it is condemned for a time, and where it 
continues invisible, but not inactive : for 
all its thoughts, notions, sentiments, rea- 
sonings, and conceptions, are in constant 
exercise, and press whatever they select, 
prefer, or pursue, with the elasticity of a 
spring, in proportion to the obstacles that 
would resist their impulse. No limits can 
be set to its workings, the celerity of its 
motions, the sublimity of its course, or the 
variety of its views, while stimulated by 
the thirst of knowledge, inspired by the 
love of truth, or captivated by the charms 
of virtue. When thus fired and directed, 
to what noble and exalted purposes does it 



12 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

collect and apply its diversified talents ! of 
what alacrity and vigour, enthusiasm and 
steadiness, is it capable ! how ample, com- 
prehensive, and profound, the faculties it 
displays ! 

If, with all its present imperfections, 
these are the capacities of our rational na- 
ture, what may it not become where they 
are no longer felt ! How shall we compute 
an improvement which increases as it pro- 
ceeds, and to the progress of which there 
is no end ! But nothing more eminently 
enhances its excellence than its freedom, as 
it acts from choice, has the power of self- 
determination, and is never contracted by 
any mechanical restraint. To all this may 
be added the solid conviction and well- 
grounded assurance that it shall never die ; 
that it is totally independent of every vicis- 
situde and contingency incidental to mat- 
ter ; that its duration is eternal ; and that 
while ages roll away its capacities will con- 
tinue to expand, and its best dispositions to 
grow better. 



TfiE HUMAN SOUL. 15 

indeed the soul seems as little aiFected 
by the decays and revolutions of nature 
around her as the sun in the heavens, who, 
surviving all the changes incident to Ms sys- 
tem, remains himself unchanged, and to 
this day raises and calms the winds, forms 
the seasons of the year, brings the fruits of 
the earth to maturit}^ warms our bodies, 
and enlightens our paths as much as ever. 
Wliile all other creatures, and every species 
of existence within our observation, are lia- 
ble to vicissitude or fluctuation, the soul, like 
the sun, retains her original essence entire, 
unadulterated, and immutable. Whether 
in a rude or cultivated state, with or with- 
out the means of exciting her exertions or 
occasioning her improvement, her spiritual, 
immortal, and rational capacities are the 
same. The pleasures and the pains of which 
she is susceptible, arising from her various 
sensations and reflections, her passions and 
her habitudes, are consequently infinite, 
and may be accumulated and extended to 
eternity. 



14 THE HUMAN SOUL, 

Thus inexhaustible are the sources of out 
happiness or misery, and so immense the 
fund laid up for us of the one or the other. 
And surely there is not a more just or inte- 
resting dictate of reason or religion, than 
that we should anxiously guard against eve- 
ry thing that may endanger this valuable 
treasure, lest, like the dog in the fable, by 
snatching at the shadow we lose the sub- 
stance* 



15 



THE HUMAN SOUL 



PART SECOND. 



Blessed be the genius of that su- 
blime philosophy which taught mankind to 
perceive an intelligent cause in all the ope- 
rations of nature and art ; which resolved 
all the phenomena of the one into divine, 
and all the modes of the other into human 
contrivance, and according to which there 
is no motion, no life, no order, no alteration, 
change, or position, relative to any thing 
visible, corporeal, or solid, not occasioned 
by or originating in mind. • 

Material beings are dull and sluggish; 
their locomotive powers are soon exhausted. 
What trifles impede the fleetest and over- 



16 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

come the strongest! The genius of man 
submits to no such laws : it differs essen- 
tially both in its attributes and activity. 
Who can number or name the inventions 
and productions of the human intellect? 
The world, in all its compartments, is but 
the theatre of her operations. The earthy 
the air, and the sea, are severally crowded 
with the w onders she hath wrought ! What 
spot on the whole surface of the globe has 
been visited by the least cultivated of our 
race, which is not stamped with her impres- 
sion, or retains not the symbols of her pre- 
sence? The sumptuous cities, palaces, 
and temples, which mark the progress and 
grandeur of polished life, exhibit her signa- 
tures as spectacles of general curiosity and 
astonishment! The very sea is in some 
degree obedient to her will : as she extends 
her empire to the water as well as to the 
land. By the virtues of a stone and tlie 
twinkling of a star, she binds that turbulent 
element with navigable laws, and rides se- 
curely on the w ings of the wind ! By the 
falling of a leaf and the motion of a shadow^ 



THE HUMAN SOUL. IT 

sfee has traced the latent principles of the 
universe, and described, with certainty and 
correctness, the regular evolutions of the 
planetary world ! 

But her essence, faculties, and effects, are 
best displayed in the various forms, revolu- 
tions, and characters of political society. 
What is it that gives meri^, distinction, and 
utility to letters, but genius and taste? 
What is the history of nations and ages, 
but the actions of mind on record ? What 
are all the useful and elegant arts, but a pic- 
ture of her feelings ? What is science, but 
the opinion she forms, from experience and 
fact, of the elementary principles, relations, 
and specific qualities of things? All na» 
ture is subjected, by her industry and inge- 
nuity, to the necessity, convenience, and the 
luxury of our race. She provides them 
an asylum from the inclemency of the skies 
in architecture, and blends our pleasures 
and our wants together, by rendering it as 
graceful as it is useful. The reptile that 
burrows in the mud, and the bird that 
i&oars to heaven ; the fish in the bottom of 

-c 2 



18 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

the deep, and the savage on the top of tfee 
mountain, or secreted in the bosom of the 
desert ;. contribute, by her ministry, to our 
ease, our pleasure, and our pride. She se- 
lects, combines, and conveys, whatever is 
most rare and precious, charming or delici- 
ous, from countries the most remote, and 
climes the most hostile, to satiate the calls 
of appetite, and answer the demands of ca- 
price. All that clothes the naked, or deco- 
rates the fine ; all that supplies the wants of 
the poor, and the superfluities of the rich; 
all that solaces the former with content, and 
augments the equipage, adorns the mansions, 
or loads the tables of the latter ; whatever 
administers to taste or comfort, or even ex- 
travagance, and renders life eligible, we owe 
to her provident contrivance and manage- 
xhent ! 

The influence of the soul extends to spip 
ritual as well as sensual objects. We are 
sometimes struck by particular instances of 
might. They surprize by surpassing the 
former effects of a similar agency. The 
prowess of the champion who has often 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 19 

fought and never been overcome, we seldom 
contemplate without a mixture of admira- 
tion and wonder ! But what are the feats of 
the most extraordinary corporeal vigour to 
those of pure intellect ? It is by man's un- 
derstanding that he has been enabled to as- 
sert, extend, and maintain the dominion 
assigned him over the inferior creatures. 
The victories of heroes, of armies, and na- 
vies, depend more on skill than strength* 
How often does the greatest brutal force 
shrink before the influence of reason ! This 
is the true Herculean club, which, in the 
hands of genuine philosophy and religion, 
has always triumphed over the grossest in- 
stances of human barbarism and absurdity. 
The rude passions of the multitude, which, 
inflamed with rage, are as fierce and unma- 
nageable as the fellest monsters, as irresist- 
ible as a torrent, as loud and as furious as a 
whirlwind, are sometimes hushed into a 
calm or soothed inta silent acquiescence by 
the charms of persuasion. It is thine, O 
intellect! to conquer our wildest inclina- 
tions, regulate our passions, mortify our ap^ 



^0 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

petites, and establish a throne more perma- 
nent, more honourable, and more blessed, 
than that of the mightiest monarch on earth, 
in the- virtues of moderation and self- govern- 
ment! 

Animate beings only are subject to Ian* 
guor and debility. The sun is never weary 
of shining, the sea of swelling, the seasons 
of returning^ the eardi of yielding her in- 
crease, ot Nature of supplying the wants 
of all her creatures : but the swiftest bird is 
soon weary of flying, the fleetest animal of 
running, the strongest of fighting, and 
^ven the fiercest of devouring its prey. 
Impotence and fatigue are the inseparable 
condition of all corporeal agency. It was 
liis apology for human frailty, who best 
knew what is in man, of what he is made, 
and for what he is fit. The spirit is willing^ 
but the flesh is weak^ There is a pleasure 
in thought which grows with its ardor; 
-and, in the intellectual as in the vegetable 
world, heat is generally a source of strength. 
With what eagerness and delight do mathe- 
maticians pore over tlieir lines, their super* 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 2^1 

ficies, and their axioms ! By them the re- 
gular returns of hunger and thirst are often 
forgotten. They are occasionally so enve- 
loped in propositions, problems, and solu- 
tions, as to appear totally insensible to the 
most common requisitions of life. This 
absence, which is frequently so ridiculous 
to the giddy and thoughtless, may probably 
arise from the celerity of the soul's motion 
in pursuit of truth or excellence, which al- 
ways increases in proportion to her superi- 
ority to sense, and her freedom from its fet- 
ters. The pleasure is the same wherever 
the object of preference or pursuit is mental. 
Men of speculation and genius, in collect- 
ing, digesting, and polishing their respect- 
ive compositions in sculpture, painting, 
poetry, eloquence, or music, have enjoy- 
ments unknown to less cultivated minds, 
and which, upon the whole, best reward 
their labours. 

From the faculties and exertions of a be- 
ing thus perfectly dissimilar to any of those 
with whom our senses habitually communi- 
cate, we are apt to inquire what are the ob- 



22 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

jects of her preference, or with whom does 
she principally associate? Truth and virtue 
are as congenial to the soul, as food to the 
stomach, or light to the eye. The presence 
of these constitute fruition, and their ab- 
sence disappointment. To whatever or 
whoever accosts her in the garb of sincerity 
and simplicity, she is strongly and instanta- 
neously attached. These are Nature's li- 
very ; and it is only with her family she 
cultivates and cherishes an intimacy. An- 
gels, though elder brethren of the hotise- 
hold of faiths are but mimstering spirits tg 
the heirs of salvation. With the whole so- 
ciety of the blessed, the general assembly 
and church of the first born^ whose names 
are written in heaven^ she is intitled to be 
enrolled, qualified to bear them company, 
and, in her own right, both by her nature, 
original, and capacity, as spiritual, as noble, 
and as heavenly as they. 

Of what she is further able, how much 
higher she may ascend in the great scale of 
moral excellence, what sublimer degrees of 
divine science her faculties may hereafter 



THE HUMAN SOUL» 23 

embrace, can only be learned from the spi- 
rits of just men made perfect, from the re- 
deemed Jrom among men, and from all the 
ages of eternity ! It is in these holy and ex- 
alted scenes where her powers will have frill 
scope to operate, and her virtues to mature; 
where she will see such prospects, be en- 
gaged in such employments, form such at- 
tachments, keep such company, and feel 
the influence of such examples, as must af- 
ford the best exercise to all her best quali- 
ties ; and where she will be placed in no 
situation to which she is not equal, have no 
duties which she cannot perform, and do 
nothing by which she will not be made bet- 
ter. Heaven is her native land, and her 
father'* s house. The business there assigned 
her will suit her nature and inclination. It 
is her element to be absorbed in the con- 
templation and imitation of divine perfection, 
and to make habitual progress in knowledge 
and virtue, without any interference from 
the pollutions of life, ignorance, iniquity, or 
impenitence! And when sense is ex- 
changed for sight, a wavering faith for open 



24 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

vision, and an evanescent hope for full frui- 
tion, she will prove herself capable of such 
things as eye hath not seeriy ear hath not 
heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of 
man to conceive! 

Who would not regret that these sublime 
and spiritual properties should be doomed 
to share the same fate with the brittle ta- 
bernacles they inhabit? But from eveiy 
aspect of nature, from every sentiment of 
the human heart, and from every page of 
divine revelation, we have the deepest and 
most substantial assurance that the souls of 
men have a much superior destiny. We 
cannot even suppose the possibility of their 
ceasing to be. Every thing in them and 
about them indicates an existence that can 
have no end. The soul moves of herself, 
and all her movements and exertions are 
those of an agent perfectly free. Without 
any such parts as can be dissipated, she ad- 
mits not of either measure or division, can 
act upon herself, send forth her ideas and 
desires to any distance ; though full of ima- 
ges, conceptions, and designs, occupies no 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 25 

Space ; and, notwithstanding various facul- 
ties, is of an essence absolutely simple. 
Apart from her immortality, her natural ef- 
ficiency, ends, and uses, all are involved in 
absurdity and mystery ; the works of the 
Almighty are without meaning or design ; 
man is deprived of hope, and his Maker of 
goodness ! Destroy our connexion with 
futurity, and you render the whole creation 
unintelligible. Better put out the light of 
heaven at once, and wrap the universe in 
impenetrable darkness, than deprive us of 
the only cordial w^hich can support our spi- 
rits when our hearts and fiesh both Jhifit and 
Jail, But all that plenitude of argument 
which reason and philosophy have discover- 
ed, the accordant voice of all civilized na- 
tions and ages, the accumulated suffrage of 
all the greatest and best men in the best of 
times, and the whole body of evidence by 
which we believe in a God and a providence, 
substantiate also the soul's immortality. 

This great doctrine, and all expectations 
connected with it, are moreover established 
beyond a doubt by the glorious gospel of the 

D 



26 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

blessed God. Here a flood of divine light 
breaks in upon our benighted minds, and 
dispels that awful gloom which filled our ap- 
prehensions of futurity with unutterable 
dread. Under all our anxieties ^bout what 
is now to come, we no longer walk in dark- 
ness^ but have the light of life. By this 
earnest of better things, this heavenly in- 
structor, this new guide to glory y honour ^ 
and immortality, the mysteries of provi- 
dence, the transactions of hereafter, the go- 
vernment and catastrophe of the universe, 
these deep things of God, are all unfolded, 
brought within the ken, or made level to 
the capacity, of mortals. ' 

From well authenticated documents of 
the most distant and unfrequented countries, 
the site of many ancient kingdoms and ci- 
ties of high renown, for their splendour, 
their achievements, and inhabitants; the very 
spot where the greatest battles have been 
fought, where empires have been lost and 
won; and even those places which have 
been consecrated to Fame by philosophy 
and letters, where policy and civility have 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 27 

combined to elevate and adorn the species^ 
where the sciences have flourished, the arts 
excelled, and the projects of commerce been 
extended, are now either utterly unknown, 
or so disguised by the rudeness of succes- 
sive ages, and the ignorance of barbarous 
natives, as hardly to retain a trace of what 
they once w^ere ! Whatever genius, in its 
happiest moments, could suggest or create, 
tlie most exquisite taste refine, or the fa= 
culties of man, in their best condition, per- 
form, have all issued from these primary 
abodes of merit. But, alas! how few and 
imperceptible the remaining memorials of 
their happier days ! 

Ah! what a mortifying lesson do these 
vestiges of fallen grandeur hold up to hu- 
man pride I how emphatically illustrate the 
mutability of human society! in what af- 
fecting colours picture the final result of 
things! Is not that principle of corruption 
which has laid the boldest efforts of men, 
and of nations, in splendid heaps of ruins, 
even now at work, as it ever has been, in 
sapping the found.ations of the universe? 



2B THE HUMAN SOUL. 

Centuries upon centuries have elapsed 
since the voice of inspiration proclaimed 
the end of all things at hand! How much 
more does it become us, in these last times, 
to look for a new heaven and a new earth! 
It is chiefly amidst this awful, this gene- 
ral, and decisive desolation, that the soul 
of man shall demonstrate her superiority 
to the beggarly elements of mortality. The 
dissolution of worlds, and of all that is ma- 
terial in nature, so far Crom hurting her ex- 
istence, or endangering her safety, shall but 
enhance her triumphover time and the grave. 
The creatures around her are doomed to pe- 
rish, but she shall endure. They all wax 
old as a garment^ and as a vesture are fold- 
ed up, and consigned to the dust that pro- 
duced them; but of her years there shall be 
no end. Yes; interwoven with the vitals of 
every human frame, there is a principle, how- 
ever obscured by the grossness or debility 
of its present organs, however sluggish and 
torpid by the pressure of infirmity, however 
distracted and debased by the opposition of 
fesh and spirit , which shall continue stable 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 29 

and immoveable when the elements melt 
with fervent heat, the pillars of the earth 
are shook to its basis, and the everlasting 
hills uprooted, when the heavens are rolled 
together as a scroll, and even ^a^^ away with 
a great noise. 

Under all these terrible and supernatural 
circumstances, the human soul shall be 
seen fresh, vigorous, and glowing with 
the anticipation of the glory to be revealed, 
soaring far above the wreck of the universe, 
joining and embracing her kindred spirits 
in the realms of eternity. 



D 2 



m 



THE HUMAN SOUL, 



PART THIRD. 



The value of objects are generally, 
estimated by comparing them with others; 
hy the opinion entertained of their e^^cellence 
by such as best know them ; and by the price 
they bring when fairly put to sale. 

Between the rational faculty of man, and 
any species or form of material being, there 
is not a single point of resemblance. Their 
natures and qualities are totally distinct and 
heterogeneous. The present is to the one 
the last, and to the other but the first stage of 
existence. Now they rneet but every sub- 
sequent moment, and every step of their 
progress removes them to a wider distance 



THE ITUMAN SOUL. SI 

from each other. Indeed their entrance, 
their acting, and their exit, in the great dra- 
ma of life, have nothing common or analo- 
gous. 

Among visible objects, the human body 
is the most beautiful, the most exquisitely: 
formed, and combines in one point more 
symmetry, gracefulness, and utility , than any 
other. But the soul is the source of all its 
excellence, and reigns within it as the sun 
in his system, filling all its faculties with 
light, and all its functions with life. Fronv 
the plastick hand of nature, it derives its 
shape, its parts, its proportion, and probably 
its upright posture. These distinctions 
however are only material and perishing. 
But the lustre of the eye, the tone of the 
voice, the animation of the countenance, the 
manly attitude, the elevated deportment, and 
the whole majesty of gesture, are expres- 
sions of pure mindo 

What then shall we think of her worth 
to whom in all that the eye sees, or the ear 
hears, there is nothing like, nothing equal. 
The criminal insensibility of millions to 



32 TJHE HUMAN SOU^L. 

their own welfare, and their own consev 
quence, does not invalidate the fact, that 
their natures are endowed and adorned with 
powers of more intrinsic excellence, thaji 
any thing earthly or perishing^ 

All inanimate creatures, however illustri- 
ous from place, or useful from the end they 
are destined to serve, are inconscious of 
themselves, and incapable of enjoying what- 
ever they are or possess. The sun, at once 
the most glorious and most beneficial of all 
creatures, gives life to all, butis himself with- 
out life.. He is said, indeed, to rejoice like a 
giant to run his race^ but is notwithstanding 
without any satisfaction from the light he 
sheds, or the warmth he imparts. Our 
souls, on the contrary,, are happy > or misera- 
ble, from conciousness alone, and possess a 
fund of pain and pleasure, totally indepert- 
dent of every thing around them. In fact 
their own thoughts and inventions are inex^ 
haustible sources of suffering or enjoyment. 

Some brutes there are, who disco vo" 
wonderful sagacity ; but how narrow, how 
imperfecta how poor is this faculty, in the 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 33 

most docile among them, compared with 
that of man ! His improvement is perpetual 
and unlimited. He investigates, analyses, 
and applies the laws of the universe, to 
enlighten his mind and govern his actions. 
Inferior creatures soon arrive at the goal 
which bounds their destination. They stop 
and are perfect, the moment the ends for 
which they exist are answered. Sense, 
which is their governing principle, has but 
a confined operation. Its objects are few, 
and gross in kind. It moves in a circle, and 
grows more feeble and insipid from every 
round. Depending on a certain arrange- 
ment of organs, it decays as they do, and 
partakes in their dissolution. But man, 
conscious of nobler faculties, is in constant 
pursuit of more exalted objects. All di- 
vine truth occupies his understanding ; the 
beauties of the natural and moral worlds 
command his admiration and regard ; and 
the attributes of Deity, manifested in the 
wonders of creation, providence, and re- 
demption, inspire him with astonishment 
and gratitude, give sublimity to his wishes. 



34 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

and expansion to his heart. What so na- 
tural and becoming his rational and immor- 
tal capacity, as thus to explore the princi- 
ples, mark the order, admire the benevo- 
lence, and trace out by unwearied diligence 
all the various excellencies and utilities 
w^hich discriminate the benignity and wis- 
dom of God in every part of his works? 
Nor is there any end or measure to the 
pleasure and improvement which result from 
these elevated contemplations. In the mo- 
ral system, he surveys with deeper sensibi- 
lity and interest, a still higher order of things 
—superior attention and greater power, in 
conducting the mysterious kingdom of pro- 
vidence ; in rendering darkness subservi- 
ent to light, weakness to strength, and evil, 
to good ; in harmonizing the most oppo- 
site and unconnected events, reducing con« 
tingencies to order, and directing all the 
energies and issues of all material, moral, 
and spiritual agencies, to the most benefi- 
cial and the most general ends. Impressed 
by a sense of right and wrong, virtue and 
vice, beauty and ugliness, he feels himself 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 3B 

responsible for whatever he is or does. 
Capable of knowing, adoring, and obeying 
his Maker, he regards him with terror or 
confidence, in proportion as conscious of de- 
serving his displeasure or protection. And 
whatever his adversities or misfortunes may- 
be, something within still supports him by 
the kindest intimations of what is to come : 
nor is his nature, even in the most critical 
and trying situations, ever altogether with- 
out the resource, that all the miseries of the 
present may be ultimately compensated by 
the enjoyments of the future. 

In common life all are aware of the mani- 
fold and decided advantages which superior 
parts give one individual over another. 
Whence, in the commencement of civil so- 
ciety, do sages and philosophers command 
so much reverence and attention? It is a 
certain greatness of intellect which impres- 
ses, overawes, and controls the multitude, 
who are formed to regard every specimen of 
transcendent talent with admiration and con- 
fidence. In rude ages, or among people of 
unpolished manners, it is astonishing with 



36 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

what eagerness they cling to every one old- 
er, wiser, and stronger than themselves. 
Eminent sagacity begets affiance and trust 
as naturally as ivy adheres to the wall, or 
the brood takes shelter under the wings of 
the dam. By mind alone, men have ever 
been united, and led forth to enslave or be 
enslaved, to defend their own or invade the 
freedom of others. This active and power- 
ful principle, sanctioned and matured by ex- 
perience, organizes the body politic; to the 
functions of a regular system adds civiliza- 
tion of manners, and lays a foundation for 
every species of excellence and grandeur 
which distinguishes the taste, the science, 
or tiie morals of men and nations. From 
the permanency of its operations, and the 
fertility of its resources, life, in all its orders, 
deo-rees, and associations, is continually 
furnished with every needful appurtenance. 
It institutes and conducts the whole machi- 
nery of government ; affords protection to 
the weak from the outrage of the strong ; 
shields the innocent and punishes the guilty; 
dictates laws, and provides for their esta- 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 37 

blisliment, energy, and execution ; directs 
our public counsels, fights our battles, and 
manages our interest. 

More especially, in circumstances of ex- 
treme necessity, are not our rational facul- 
ties superior to all other resources ? Who 
but that provident genius, which, for the 
wisest and sublimest purposes, is the privi- 
lege of the species, could rescue or protect 
them from the numberless inconveniences 
and wants which environ and harass the 
helpless state of infancy ? How precious is 
the physician in the absence of health, which 
all the wealth of the Indies cannot compen- 
sate otherwise than by procuring the best 
skill and the best medicine ! How accept- 
able in emergencies of state, under the 
pressure of general calamity, when society 
is convulsed with faction, and a fearful anxi- 
ety broods in every countenance for public 
safety, are the prudent suggestions of wis- 
dom and e;fiperience ! With what ardour, 
solicitude, and tenacity, do whole armies in 
the hour of battle hang upon the word of 
command! How preferable then is supc- 



38 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

rior intelligence to superior numbers ! 
That word is the spring of all their move- 
ments. Whence the origin and director of 
all those energies on which the fate of the 
action depends but in the soul of the general; 
and what are these but exertions of intellect, 
and thy triumphs, O mind, over the most 
formidable arrangements of corporeal force ! 

In all that series of things which constitute 
the system of the universe, we perceive no- 
thing but attributes of an Omnipotent, All- 
wise, and Benign Agent: and whatever in 
the whole range of art, which, in its highest 
perfection, is but an imitation of nature, ap- 
pears beautiful to the eye, or harmonious to 
the ear, is an effulgence or emanation of the 
human soul. 

Thus from the superior excellence of the 
effects we necessarily infer the transcendent 
Talue of the cause. 

But what is their opinion of this wonder- 
working principle, who are best acquainted 
with its nature and faculties? From the ex- 
terior of nature, from philosophy, from ex- 
periencCj and from all the usual resources of 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 39 

science, we can derive but a scanty portion 
of knowledge concerning the real essence of 
the human mind. Of a being purely spiri- 
tual, our senses yield us no adequate ac- 
count. We inquire not after the good or 
bad qualities of any thing tangible, visible, 
or mortal, or hope for satisfaction from such 
objects. This were literally to seek the liv- 
ing among the dead. But, in the world of 
spirits, ours are as familiarly known, as we 
are to one another. The mysteries, how- 
ever, of an invisible state, are not to be ex- 
plored by short-sighted reason. A veil, im- 
pervious to human wit, divides between the 
intellectual and corporeal constitution of the 
universe. 

Christians are pledged to the belief of the 
gospel, and supposed to live under a habitu- 
al impression, that the whole scheme it 
exhibits is absolutely and infallibly true. 
With the scepticism of licentious or the so- 
phistries of bad men we do not now con- 
tend : and, among the various discoveries of 
this auspicious and sublime dispensation, 
the lustre which it sheds on the nature, con- 



40 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

dition, and prospects of immortal souls, is 
none of the least. To depreciate their 
worth, or treat their safety with indifference, 
is throwing a slander upon the infinite wis- 
dom of God, and even viUfyiiig that benig- 
nity in which the redemption of the world 
originated. 

It is not in matters of trivial or no conse- 
quence the wisest of men are usually en- 
gaged. Deep and solemn deliberation indi- 
cates serious business. General conven- 
tions of the most liberal and enlightened in- 
dividuals seldom meet but when emergen- 
cies of great national moment call them to- 
gether. But in the oracles of truth our ra- 
tional natures are exhibited, as employing 
the thoughts and purposes of God from eter- 
nity. For their welfare the counsels of heaven 
are then said to have been held, and we, to 
have been chosen in Christ before the world 
began. Infinite wisdom and mercy are 
there represented, in condescension to hu- . 
man conception, as devising the means of 
rescuing our race from the wrath to come. 
This even seems to be the grand aim of 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 41 

Providence in all its subsequent manifesta- 
tions, and to which every other is palpably 
subordinate. Indeed, from the best notices 
of Deity which reason and revelation afford, 
we are taught to conceive, that the deliverance 
of men's souls from a state of darkness, cor- 
ruption, and guilt, and their restoration to 
purity, perfection, and friendship with God, 
must have been the governing and ultimate 
design of all his works. To this interesting 
truth, the whole body of history, both an- 
cient and modern, bears witness. In scrip- 
ture particularly, which more than any 
other record preserves the transactions of 
antiquity, we behold a series of events de- 
tailed, which gradually unfold the propiti- 
ous purposes of heaven, and terminate in the 
felicity and perfection of our system. 

The rank of individuals is distinguished 
for the most part in society by their habita- 
tions. With the exception of a few impos- 
tures, which may be called the prodigies of 
fashionable life, we look not for beggars in 
palaces, or princes in huts. The circum- 
stances of the owner are readily indicated by 



42 THE HITMAN SOUt. 

the house he occupies. By this rule, how 
eminently excellent must not the inmate of 
a frame so wonderfully and fearfully made 
as ours be ! For the comfortable accommo- 
dation of this most exquisite piece of di- 
vine mechanism, the earth and all its fulness 
is appropriated. At the resurrection of the 
just this mortal shall put on immortality. 
When the material fabric of nature is dis- 
solved, our very bodies are destined to sur- 
vive the devouring flames. As organs of 
an immortal spirit, as temples of the living 
God, mansions of glory in the celestial realms 
are in reserve for their reception ; where, we 
are well assured, their dwelling for ever 
shall be a house not made with hands, eter- 
nal in the heavens. 

From their incomparable structure, and 
distinguished destination, the worth of the 
soul is a natural inference. But the provisions 
made for her welfare extend far beyond 
those of the body. On her account, the 
world was reared and established as a 
school, in which she might go through ail 
such stages and degrees of discipline as the 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 43 

improvement and felicity of her nature re- 
quire : and the fixed ordination of heaven is, 
that the institution should cease when its ob- 
ject is accomplished. Indeed, the present 
visible frame of things is no more, in the 
scripture account of it, than the apparatus 
or theatre on which the great Artificer of 
the universe rears and finishes this master- 
piece of his works. And when the moral, 
which is the end of every other created, sys- 
tem, is brought to perfection, and the image 
of God completely restored in the soul of 
man, matter in all its numerous and vast 
associations will become useless, and, in 
the rapid vicissitude of worlds, which shall 
then take place, be succeeded by those new 
heavens and that new earthy which we are 
taught to expect with the glorious restitu- 
tion of all things. 

Princes seldom squander their treasures 
in the purchase of what is of no importance 
or use to themselves or their subjects. It 
IS only for objects of the most general inte- 
rest, that the wisdom of the nation expends 
the property or the blood of the publico 



44 THE HUMAN SOITL. 

How solemnly then do they who have no 
value for their souls, impeach the conduct 
of heaven ! The redemption of them is so 
precious^ that its contrivance, process, and 
completion constitutes the supreme plan of 
Divine Providence, and is the leading fact 
which discriminates and runs through the 
whole revelation of God. The ransom laid 
down for them was not silver or gold^ or 
any such corruptible things, but the precious 
blood of Christ as of a lamb without spot. 
Think ye, who despise or neglect your own 
souls, how dear they are to heaven ! See 
the son of the great God die that they may 
live ! Who but thee, thou Saviour of lost 
souls, who knewest them so well, could 
have valued them so high, bought them at 
such a price, or ascertained their welfare by 
such means ? To save us with an everlast- 
ing salvation, he who is the bright?iess of 
the Father'' s glory ^ and the express image 
of his person, was actually made flesh; as- 
saulted by every human infirmity, though 
far above every creature ; in that humble 
form see?i of angels ; though equal to Gody 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 45' 

blain of men ; and, while Lord of the living 
and the dead, laid in a grave ! What a 
spectacle of infinite love and infinite power ! 
in which mercy and justice, weakness and 
omnipotence, majesty and humility, all the 
splendours of honour and all the shades of 
ignominy are combined, and blended in the 
sweetest lustre ! He who, out of his vast 
storehouse, supplies our bodies wuth every 
thing convenient for them, draweth them 
wine out of the vine, filleth their mouths 
with bread out of the corn, and spinneth 
them garments out of the bov^^els of a worm 
and the fleece of the flock, gives up th^ 
ghost that the souls may breathe the breath 
of life y and literally empties himself that they 
may be filled with all the fulness of God, 
It was this wonderful union of the attributes 
of the Creator with the qualities of the crea- 
ture which converted the cross into a tri- 
umphal throne, on which the divine Savi- 
our publicly substantiated his final conquest 
over all the enemies of our immortal souls ! 
In the estimate put on our souls by him 
v/ho knows them, who perfectly compre- 



46 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

hends their nature, capacities, and destiny, 
and who sees through the full extent of 
their worth, all these scenes of humiliation 
and suffering, so astonishing, so mysterious, 
and sg awful, took their beginning, and 
shall ultimately terminate. Of this solemn 
transaction a thoughtless world was too lit- 
tie awai^e to be suitably impressed with the 
characters of majesty and grace so legibly 
stamped on every part of it, or by the nu- 
merous and striking consequences it was 
likely to produce ! But the most stupen- 
dous creatures in the whole kingdom of in- 
animate nature did homage to the miracle, 
by a visible sympathy wdth the mi^ty 
Sufferer. Indeed, the conflict then sus- 
tained was so fierce and terrible, the agony 
endured in that critical hour so awful, and 
the debt thus rigidly exacted so immense, 
that our whole globe seemed to feel the 
shock, and was palpably seized with a fit of 
trembling ; the rocks v/ere rent, the dead 
raised, the bowels of the earth convulsed, 
the sun eclipsed, and the heavens wrapped 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 47 

in a mantle of mournful and gloomy dark- 
ness. 

No great or beneficial achievement ever 
took place on earth, where the agents were 
not serious. All discoveries and improve- 
ments in arts, and science, and life, originate 
in this temper of mind. Whenever we find 
ourselves forcibly impelled to action, or have 
^ny material interest at stake, or are by any 
means deeply engaged, every indication and 
degree of levity appear childish and imperti- 
nent. A relaxed state of mind is seldom or ne- 
ver the humourin which we enter on business 
of importance. On such occasions, sagaci- 
ty and prudence are inseparable associates. 
It never was for any good purpose, or with 
any pure intentien, to tame the fury of pas- 
sion, strengthen the energies of reason, ex- 
tend the empire of virtue, or curb the ex- 
cess of vice, that w^isdom was coupled with 
dulness, or that the sentiments of decency, 
gravity, and moderation have been decried 
in the ribaldry of derision or contempt. 
From the critical situation we fill, the strong 
ties we are under, the deepness of the game 



48- THE HUMAN SOUL. 

we play, and the consequences which de- 
pend on the present part we act, the concern 
which ought to be nearest our hearts is aw- 
ful and important ! In all the dealings of 
God with us, this is the object about which 
he is most in earnest. The inestimable va- 
lue of our souls engrosses all his thoughts, 
as it ought to do ours : and in a tone of the 
most serious importunity we are addressed 
in behalf of that part of us which can never 
see death, by every divine and spiritual be- 
ing in the whole drama of revelation. Why 
hath the Almighty Father of spirits taken 
all along so much care of ours, charged his 
Son with their safety, his providence with 
their convenience, his angels with their com- 
fort, and all his creatures in their several 
places and relations, with their present and 
ultimate happiness ? Why did he who is 
heir of all things, to save them, relinquish all? 
Did he not for their sake partake of flesh and 
blood, in all its weakness and all its wants ; 
stoop to the insults of the worst and the ba- 
sest ; endure every pain and sorrow nature 
can feel or cruelty inflict ; and even submit 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 49^ 

to the death of the cross in all its bitterness 
and horror? Why but for the same reason 
does the gracious Spirit of God express 
such a fervent solicitude about us, and eve- 
ry where take so decided and so deep an inte- 
rest in our conduct and our destiny ? He 
offers on all occasions to be our guide and 
counsellor ; strives with us for our benefit, 
by opposing the best to the worst propensi- 
ties of our natures ; habitually puts us in 
mind of the duties we are most apt to for- 
get ; gently encourages us in every thing- 
right and laudable; and kindly restrains us 
from actions and pursuits that are dangerous 
and wronsr. 

Thus every part of the divine govern- 
ment, and every step in the divine econo- 
my, are marked by the worth of souls. To 
protect them from the various perils which 
menace and environ them, all the attributes 
of Deity are in constant exertion ; and all 
that is good in heaven and earth, and in the 
whole creation of God, is in arms for their 
rescue from every harm to which they are 
liable. For their entire happiness, their 

F 



50 THE HUMAN SOUL* 

accommodation here and perfection hereafter, 
their present improvement and their future 
glory, every thing has been actually done 
which mercy could suggest or power accom- 
plish. And, it may well be added, the very 
assiduities of those infernal spirits who in- 
cessantly labour to undo us, is a proof we 
are in possession of something desirable, 
something worth their trouble, something 
we cannot lose without losing ourselves. 

There is yet another mode of bringing 
this matter to the test. In the mercantile 
world, every thing is worth just so much as 
it will fetch. What an infinite value does 
this one consideration affix to- a rational and 
immortal spirit ! How precious must not 
that be, in every man's idea, which involves 
all the enjoyment and happiness of which 
his nature is susceptible! How can he 
bear the deprivation of what is better to him 
than ail worlds, and absolutely dearer and 
more interesting than all that life can give, 
or the want of life take away ! On the soul, 
or the mind alone, depend all present pos- 
session and all future expectation, the life that 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 51 

now is and that which is to come, the pleasures 
of sense and the anticipations of hope, the 
shadows of time and the reahties of eternity, 
whatever God bestows or man receives. Be 
your distinctions, your preferences, or your 
attainments, what they may, your rational 
faculties, formed on the principles, and pu- 
rified by the genius of the gospel, are the 
fountain whence all those living streams 
which beautify and adorn, and fertilize your 
natures, do flow. Have you more holiness 
or better morals than the world which lieth 
in wickedness? And this you may certain- 
ly know by that conscious humility of heart 
which is the constant associate of true 
worth. You owe both cause and effect, 
which can never be separated, to a mind 
happily disposed for improving the means 
appropriated for these purposes with supe- 
rior success. The soil which received the 
seed profitably, is interpreted, by unerring 
wisdom, that goodness of heart which is 
ever available in the sight of God. The 
servants in the parable were severally re- 
w^arded in proportion to the number, as 



52 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

well as improvement of their talents. Ca- 
pacity, as well as application, is there made 
the measure or ^standard of distribution. 
He was the greatest favourite, and best em- 
ployed what he had, who possessed the 
greatest share of gifts. And the least en- 
dowed was also most idle, the worst dispos- 
ed, and received, as he well deserved, the 
severest punishment. 

It is always thus that talents properly oc- 
cupied will be ultimately found most ad- 
vantageous, and productive of the best ef- 
fects. No pain, or mischance, or misery, 
is ever a consequence of their exertions, 
but when prostituted or misapplied. In 
theif* life we live, and from their vigour and 
activity derive the best species of health and 
strength. So excellent, so capacious, so 
w^onderfuUy accommodating, and so preg- 
nant of resource, are the various powers of 
our souls, that, little as we esteem and cul- 
tivate their excellence, by the blessing of 
God, on the means of his own institution, 
for enlightening, sanctifying, and replenish- 
ing them with the virtues and graces of 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 53 

religion, they will be found adequate to the 
completion of all our wishes, the relief of all 
our necessities, the supply of all our defects, 
^nd the consummation of all our hopes. 

Why, O children of dust, and heirs of 
immortality ! is not a principle thus useful 
and divine, as it is your highest excellence, 
also your supreme concern ? How soon 
may the pleasures, the honours, and the pro- 
fits of life perish with it, and of all you 
possess, and all you desire and adore, leave 
you nothing but your souls ! And where 
will you flee for refuge, or fmd an asylum 
from the ruin that overwhelms you, if these 
are naked, without God or without hope ? 
In all the most dismal abodes of human de- 
gradation and woe, there is not such another 
species cf melancholy madness as theirs, 
who can even now support the idea of brav- 
ing the misery which a mind intrinsically 
depraved, abandoned, and black \^'ith cri- 
minal passions^ must ultimately and inevi- 
tably entail ! 

Does any thing on v.hich your solicitude 
fastens, deserve it so much, or promise to 

t2 



54 THE HUMAN SOUL. 

repay it so amply, as the salvation of your 
souls ? Of all other objects of predilection 
or pursuit, is not this the one thing needful? 
Should not our anxiety be proportionate to 
the worth or importance of whatever attaches, 
exercises, or engrosses it ? Alexander of 
Macedon deemed nothing in his possession 
sufficiently precious for the box of the Per- 
sian monarch but the works of Homer : 
the ancient Christians, with much better 
reason, expressed their esteem for the sa» 
cred books, by adorning them with the 
costliest ornaments of jewels, and gold, and 
diamonds. Men of high rank and large 
property have sometimes selections of rare 
things, which, from their antiquity, their 
former owners, or certain circumstances 
connected with them, are, in their partial 
opinion at least, of superlative value. These 
are not exposed every where, at random, 
to vulgar inspection, always open, or loosely 
tossed about with vessels or tools of com- 
mon use, but treated with delicacy and re- 
spect, and deposited in places appropriated 
for secrecy and security. 



ft 
THE HUMAN SOUL. 55 

Where then shall we find a cabinet com- 
petent to the safety of our precious souls! 
Or where can they so carefully or so happily 
repose as in the bosom of God ! We trust 
the lawyer with our charters, our bankers 
with our money, and our physicians with 
our health; but in the hands of none in all 
the world can we commit the keeping of 
our souls with perfect confidence, but in 
thine, thoxi God of truth! 



56 



PHILOSOPHY 



OF 



A PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 



PART FIRST. 



Were the son of a poor peasant, 
a labourer, a carpenter, or any. other low 
mechanic, among us, without the interest of 
friends, the influence of money, the patro- 
nage of the great, or the advantage of a li- 
beral education, all on a sudden to strike 
the public attention by an extraordinary de- 
gree of moral and intellectual worth, which 
of us would not anxiously explore the cause 
of so uncommon a phenomenon ? If the 
notions of this man, notwithstanding an ob- 
scure birth, unpolished manners, and a mind 
totally uneiilightened by literature, science. 



PHILOSOPHY OF, &C. 57 

philosophy, or a knowledge of the world, 
were actually more sublime and better adapt- 
ed for answering all the destinations of hu- 
man society, than any system hitherto disco- 
vered, or applied to the conduct of life, his 
character, his motives, his peculiarities, and 
every thing about him, v/ould instantly and 
inevitably become an object of the most 
general and interesting inquiry. 

This is an exact epitome of the gospel. 
The circumstances in which the author and 
finisher of it made his appearance were 
equally unpromising. Nor is it any where 
gathered or collected, in genuine authenti- 
city, but from his conduct and declarations, 
as stated and detailed in the records of his 
ministry and life. 

That you may understand the real jet of 
the argument, give me leave to suppose 
you as perfectly unacquainted with the 
christian revelation as if it never had ex- 
isted, that you have no bias against it, and 
are under the influence of no preconceived 
opinion to divert your attention from its na- 
ture, simplicity, and excellence. With 



58 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

this honesty, or singleness of heart, take the 
the matter into cool and serious delibera- 
tion, and weigh every word which has fallen 
from the mouth of one so uncommonly cir- 
cumstanced, with the same caution you 
would an instrument, which invested you 
and yours with an inheritance of the great- 
est value! The documents necessary to 
substantiate such a deed, could not be too 
critically examined, or too explicitly estab- 
lished. The evidences of religion chal- 
lenge a decision from motives infinitely 
more serious and impressive : they suppose 
no property, however precious or extensive, 
of any consequence, compared with the 
value of immortal souls: they urge your 
consent with the propitious terms of mercy, 
by every consideration which can interest or 
awe the human heart: they give you an 
option of perfect happiness, and propose, 
on the simple exactions of confidence and 
acquiescence, to emancipate you from all 
the complicated evils in which vice, infir- 
mity, or misfortune, may involve you : 
. they address you in a language so earnest^ 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 5§ 

SO unequivocal, and so decided, as to leave 
those unhappy persons who finally resist 
their importunity, and obstinately prefer the 
indulgence of passion to the performance 
of duty, altogether without excuse. 

Christianity treats of the world as lost, 
but at the same time recoverable. It is a 
system of reform which, in its own nature, 
supposes debility, derangement, and imper- 
fection. On this basis the whole divine su- 
perstructure rests ; consequently the only 
effectual mode of superseding the necessity 
of revelation, is to prove the nature of man, 
in its present state, competent, without any 
supernatural aid, to all the ends for which 
he was made. 

It is assumed, as a radical and incontro- 
vertible fact, that, on the advent of Christ, 
the far greater part of all nations grovelled 
in a state of the grossest ignorance and de- 
pravity. They were not more barbarous 
in their manners than abandoned in their 
principles, and as destitute of morals as of 
science. On this strong ground religion 
takes her stand, and bids defiance to her 



60 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

enemies. And no man can fairly bring an 
accusation of imposture against her without 
being prepared to discredit this circum- 
stance ; a task sufficiently arduous from the 
numerous and formidable hosts of evidence 
to be eneountered. 

The guilty and degraded condition of the 
moral world is repeatedly asserted by every 
evangelist who states the transactions of his 
master as consistent with the experience of 
contemporaries, as an object of common 
observation and conviction, ^as an incident 
in the history of the species which the worst 
could not deny, and which the best could 
only regret. 

They give it, as the most gracious and 
illustrious character of Jesus, that he is a 
light to enlighten the world. But where 
there is no darkness, no obscurity, no er- 
ror, Avhere every truth essential to the con- 
duct of life, the comfort of the human heart, 
and the ultimate happiness and perfection of 
man, appears obvious, intelligible, and prac- 
ticable, what occasion for further informa- 
tion and direction ? The Saviour has him- 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 61 

self declared, he came to seek and to save 
that which was lost. None of his oppo- 
nents, in the days of his flesh, presumed to 
assert or even insinuate, that such an errand 
was either chimerical or useless. Its ne- 
cessity and urgency are uniformly admitted 
by all who opposed him. They rest their 
sole objection to his mission on the reality 
of the powers with which he avowed him- 
self invested for giving it effect. 

The prophecies in v/hich his character 
and kingdom are foretold, from the figura- 
tive language they adopt, and the various 
degrees of human suffering to which they 
allude, obviously suppose the general and 
prevailing corruptions of mankind. They 
describe hinji as the Sun of Righteousness, 
bursting on a dark and diseased universe, 
with healing under his wi?igs; as a harbin- 
ger whom Heaven, in the plenitude of mer- 
cy, commissions to ji^rc?c/a2;?2 deliverance to 
the captive nations ; as a prophet, to give 
light to those who sit in darkness ; as a sa- 
viour, to rescue from impending and im- 
mediate ruin the whole human race., re- 



62 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

duced as they were by guilt and folly to 
the last extremity ; as a physician, to heal 
the sick and to open the eyes of the blind; 
as a God, to communicate life to the dead. 
The deep degeneracy of our nature is palpa- 
bly implicated in the progress and splendour 
of truth, to which these features of the 
christian dispensation so unequivocally re- 
fer- 
In the apostolic ages we meet with the 
same lamentable state of things. Here we 
find still fuller, more direct, and more con- 
vincing proofs that the whole fabric of evan- 
gelical truth is founded on the fallen condi- 
tion of man. In many passages of the 
epistles, in what deplorable and shocking 
colours are the maimers of the ancients ex- 
hibited, particularly those nations who were 
most distinguished by their transcendant 
acquisitions in science, philosophy, and the 
fine arts ! The picture is striking, promi- 
nent, and every where discovers the hand of 
a master : but, from what we know of the 
havock which luxury makes in religion and 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 63 

morals among ourselves, k appears no where 
overcharged. 

The piety of these times did not consist 
of the gentle and simple aspirations of grati- 
tude f6r benefits received, or hopes of more 
substantial happiness hereafter to be confer- 
red, but of every horrid form the gloomiest 
superstition could invent or assume ; of 
imaginations gross, debasing, and chimeri- 
cal; of rites ridiculous, unintelhgible, and 
flagitious ; of ceremonies fantastic and ex- 
pensive ; and of a series of devotional exer- 
cises which had no connexion with good- 
ness of heart or purity of life, public utility 
or private comfort. The characters of the 
populace may be easily gathered or conceiv- 
ed, from a system of worship thus sordid 
and monstrous. 

Nor w^ere the manners of the multitude, 
even in these flivourite countries, under any 
acknowledged regulations of sound mora- 
lity. Their best public and municipal in- 
stitutions were calculated rather for the pros- 
perity of society than individual felicity. 
Among them no settied principles of rccti- 



64 



rHILOSOPHY OF A 



tude possessed the energy of a general con- 
trol. The opinions even of their sages, va- 
luable and sublime as they were, in many 
respects, had yet no authority over the pub- 
lic mind, as they were left to operate by 
their own weight, without the sanction of the 
magistrate. And the conscience of the low, 
the unenlightened, and the vicious, is at 
best but a feeble barrier against the pressure 
of interest, or the outrage of passion. 

Such was the melancholy and desperate 
state of mankind at the period of our 
Saviour's appearance. 1'he heathen world 
was sunk in the grossest idolatry. The 
gods they adored Vvcre patterns of debauch- 
ery, and the foulest passions of their vota- 
ries v/ere warmed at their altars. And 
though their philosophers are to this day 
famous for the beauty of their theories, the 
wisdom of their sayings, and the wit which 
enlivened their conversation, they generally 
lived like other men, and their characters ex- 
hibited, for the most part, the same contrast 
of good and bad qualities Avhich prevailed 
in the least cultivated minds. The know- 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 65 

ledge of the true God, and all its best con- 
sequences on society, were almost extin- 
guished even in Judea, where it had been so 
long and laudably cultivated. So that, in 
the capital concern of moral worth, all na- 
tions, and all men in every nation, were then 
on the same deplorable level ; and to all the 
most important purposes for which the spe- 
cies had a being, the world was literally 
lost. This affecting circumstance is not 
only taken for granted, and exposed in vari* 
Gus interesting lights, by all the writers of 
the New Testament, but in the same man- 
ner, and to the same extent, though not wuth 
the same view, by all the authors of anti- 
quity. 

The gospels introduce us to an acquaint- 
ance with a person who appeared, nearly 
two thousand years ago, for no other pur- 
pose but to counteract the consequences of 
a degeneracy thus inveterate and universal. 
Who he was — how he v/as accomplished — 
what he did, and taught, and suffered — to 
whom he delegated his authority and pow- 
ers — and what w^ere the effects both of his 

g2 



66 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

personal and vicarious ministry — are ques- 
tions to which his history affords plain and 
satisfactory answers. 

Of this man we know nothing but from 
the New Testament, which details every 
particular concerning him with so much 
brevity, that the whole may be read in a few 
hours. There we learn, that he was by parent- 
age a Jew, by birth a peasant, and by trade a 
carpenter. His countrymenwere become the 
most contemptible on the face of the earth : 
his parents had neither rank, nor property, 
nor friends : for thirty years of his life he 
was buried in obscurity, and the powers of 
his mind engrossed in contriving and effect- 
ing provision for the body; and the pro- 
gress of mental improvement, amidst the 
toils of a laborious occupation, may be 
supposed to have been then as slow and im- 
perceptible as it is now. The world at that 
time could afford no instruction adequate to 
the purposes of the mission he avowed, no 
materials for the system he established, no 
examples from which his conduct could 
take its shape or its colour : he was not even 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 6? 

in circumstances to avail himself of the little 
assistance which the various schools of letters 
and philosophy were calculated to yield : he 
claimed no connection with the great, the 
popular, or the wealthy ; contracted no 
friendships but among the ignorant and la- 
borious ; had no party but the lame, the 
maimed, the blind, the naked, and the 
needy ; formed no intercourse but with the 
poor ! 

These disadvantages, calculated, as it ap- 
pears, to disparage every thing mortal or 
human, were totally absorbed in the lustre of 
an understanding which embraced and dis- 
closed whatever is most useful and interest- 
ing to man. He possessed no requisite of 
human ambition, and was destitute of for- 
tune and all its flattering auxiliaries and con- 
comitants. V No specific art, quality, or 
embellishment, calculated to render him ac- 
ceptable, or make an impression in his fa- 
vour, but that which was purely intellectual 
and moral, seems to have distinguished him 
from the mass of the people. Little in the 
habit, and less conversant with the objects, 



68 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

of speculation, he was equally without lei- 
sure for applying to knowledge, and the 
means of rendering such an application effec- 
tual. Secluded from ail intimacy or com- 
munication with the gay, the great, or the 
busy, by acting his part in a subordinate ca- 
pacity, he was destined to grapple with all 
that disrespect which attends indigence, 
tliose deceptions which dog simplicity, and 
those contumelies which insult dependence. 
His character, his pretensions, and his pow- 
ers, were all exclusively his own. Debar- 
red of access to the council of the wise, the 
circles of the polished, or the classes of the 
learned, and, till his ministry commenced, 
kept at a distance from that intercourse and 
those scenes where men perfectly illiterate 
often acquire the polish and knowledge of 
the world, he had no associates but the rab- 
ble, no language but the vulgar, and no re- 
source but his own mind, or minds no bet- 
ter formed than his own. 

Under all this load of indigence, and all 
these coincidences of accumulated depres- 
sion, a poor obscure and despised carpenter 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 69 

conceives, perfects, and proposes a plan of 
entire emancipation from every spiritual 
malady and every moral evil — so general, a» 
toembrace the whole species! — socomplete, 
as to furnish provision for the present and 
the future equal to all our wants, and even 
commensurate to all pur desires! — so sub- 
lime and original as to . confound the pride 
of science, to silence the oracles of phi- 
losoph}^, to excite the curiosity of nations, 
and to wrap the world in astonishment I 
It is in this divine system that the true 
worth of our immortal nature is fairly esti- 
mated, that our interest in the w-orld of 
spirits is disclosed, that the importance of 
eternity is estabUshed, that the best plan of 
conduct is prescribed, that a source of the 
most adequate and immediate aid in the dis- 
charge of duty is discovered, and that direc- 
tions which guide to consummate felicity 
are obvious, practicable, and ii^ifalUble. 
These are the salutary instructions which 
this heavenly Person hath bequeathed for 
our improvement and consolation ; and they 
are every where so plain, that the meanest 



70 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

capacity may understand enough for all the 
ends of a good life, and the best cultivated 
be utterly unable to construe them into an 
apology for a bad one. 

When we read of the contempt with 
which riches, grandeur, and every species 
of luxury, \yere held by certain philosophers 
of old times, we regard their apathy with a 
laudable degree of reverence. No sight 
can be more grateful and flattering, in the 
eye of reason and virtue, than a poor man, 
from a tub which contained his all, spurn- 
ing, in the indignant language of insulted 
worth, all his proffered munificence who 
deemed himself master of the world ! It is 
thus that Wisdom, even in rags, often com- 
mands respect, and from her bitterest ene- 
mies extorts applause ; and that, in the hum- 
blest garb she puts on, potentates and heroes 
have sometimes been proud to rank amongst 
her fondest admirers. But we know how ta- 
lents thus eminent are acquired; whatlabour, 
study, and time, are implicated in their 
maturity, and, in most cases, what ex- 
pence their tuition and direction, especially 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 71 

among the ancients, occasioned. The Au- 
thor of Christianity owed none of his endow- 
ments to such means. From intuition 
alone he drew all the sublime science with 
which he enriched the world. Not one of 
the great masters who then signalized them- 
selves in the various departments of human 
learning had the honour of giving him a 
lesson. He is the only absolutely self-taught 
philosopher and legislator that ever did ex- 
ist, or whose existence can never be for- 
gotten. Without the least reference or 
allusion to other teachers, or their theories, 
he delivers variety of doctrines which the 
wisest of them never knew ; and all he deli- 
vers originate solely from himself, and are 
the dictates of a mind infinitely better in- 
formed, and under a much higher direction 
than theirs. 

** Thus he, who even now gives law to 
'* a great part of the world, and to all the 
*' most enlightened nations ; who has been 
** the author of virtue and happiness to 
** millions and millions of the human race ; 
*' and whom the best men that ever lived 



72 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

/* have reverenced as a divine person, and 
^* triumuphed in him as the Deliverer and 
" Saviour of mankind," unUke any being 
merely human, or placed in similar circum- 
stances, ovv^es all his celebrity to the innate 
greatness of his own nature, and borrows 
nothing in all he taught and exemplified 
from the usual resources of intellectual or 
moral cultivation. And, surely, if there is 
one occurence in this strange eventual his- 
tory of ours more wonderful than another, 
it is to hear him, in the verv instant of 
erecting a permanent empire of true wis- 
dom and universal holiness on the ruins of 
guilt and folly, declaring of himself, that the 
foxes have holes^ and the birds of the air 
have nests, but the Son of man hath not 
where to lay his head ! 

Indeed the gospel of Christ owes nothing 
to the operations of culture, elocution, or 
interesti or any other invention or combina- 
tion of inventions which, to the success of 
every human enterprize in science, learning, 
politics, or morals, are essential and indis- 
pensable. This religion, as stated with 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE* 7B 

simplicity and exactness in the only records 
which preserve it, has stood the severest 
scrutiny of nations, and ages the most en- 
lightened and sagacious, and even baffled 
every artifice and obstacle, appropriated by 
vanity or vice, to suppress or retard its pro» 
gress. And, from the enemies it has en- 
countered, the witnesses it has produced, 
the martyrs it has inspired and supported, 
the wonders it has wrought, and the tri- 
umphs it has obtained, Christianity is to 
this day, of all the miracles it involves and 
avows, itself the greatest, most conspicuous, 
^nd most incontestible ! 

The kingdom which Christ establish- 
ed was not of this world ; neither composed 
of worldly materials, nor propagated by 
worldly means. His reign is in the hearts,' 
the consciences, and the lives of men ; and 
he governs them by laws of purity and holi- 
ness alone. He employs no sanctions but 
the hopes and fears which nature hath plant- 
ed in the human breast. His institutes are 
calculated only to enlighten the understand- 
ing, discipline tlie pUssious, rectify the at- 



74 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

tachments and pursuits of life, control the 
workings of the heart, and impregnate our 
natures with the seeds of immortality. In 
these we search in vain for the idle theorist, 
the subtile disputer, or the stern dictator. 
They discover, on all occasions, not only 
the popular instructor, but the kiiid moni- 
tor, the faithful and the tender- heartedfriend, 
and the great doctrines of eternal life are 
every where delivered with an authority and 
energy, a majesty and grace, an ardour of 
mind and strength of expression, coupled 
with an earnestness and gravity of deport- 
ment, to which there never was any thing 
similar in the schools or academies of an- 
cient wisdom. 

Let then the boldest blasphemer of reve- 
lation contrast the dignity, the novelty, the 
utility, and the splendour of its discoveries 
with his abject fortunes, hi^ obscure situa- 
tion, his lowly connections, his uncultivated, 
unambitious, and unaspiring mind, to whom 
they are ascribed, and account, at the same 
time, for an eifect thus disproportionate te 
4he cause, on any principle of human im 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 75* 

provenient or exertion. It is not in the 
wit of man to give a satisfactory solution of 
this extraordinary fact otherwise than by ad- 
mitting implicitly what its Author, who uni- 
formly professes the closest affinity and con- 
nection with an invisible world, says both 
of himself and his docrines. He avows 
whatever he tauo^ht and whatever he did to 
be the immediate and exclusive result of su- 
pernatural agency. In terms of the purest 
simplicity he frequently appeals to his 
heavenly original, and refers all the merits of 
a laborious and suffering condition to the 
special appointment of Providence; and, 
with an ease and dignity wiiich commanded 
peculiar conviction and astonishment, he as- 
serts the absolute superiority of his nature, 
the solemnity, the importance, and the divi- 
nity of his charater, and the infinite variety 
of great and interesting concerns v/hich de- 
pended on his carrying the powers and pur- 
poses with which he was entrusted into full 
execution. 

The most illustrious characters for pro- 
moting the general welfare of mankind, in 



76 ' PHILOSOPHY OF A 

ancient or modern times, have been more or 
less sullied or shaded by a dash of vanity. 
This is a littleness which, in some degree, 
seems inseparable from human greatnlsss: 
the man, at least, who is altogether without 
it is a prodigy. When even Cicero speaks 
of himself his readers are disgusted. On 
this subject his sentiments, on all other oc- 
casions so beautiful and charming, become 
silly ^nd inflated. It is then that his elocu- 
tion, glowing and ardent as it generally is, 
loses its vigour, and degenerates into garru- 
lity. That effulgence of genius to which 
lie pvvxd the most splendid distinction, is 
darkened by the vanity v^hich an under- 
standing the most accomplished, and a taste 
the most polished and correct, could not 
suppress. Indeed the wisest and the best 
of men find it impossible to detail their own 
merits, their own concerns, or anv thine* 
aboi|t themselves with propriety. 

Ail the intelligence w-e receive of our 
divine Saviour is collected from his occa- 
sional discourses. In these his exclusive 
business on earth, the mysterious and his:h 



PLEBEIAN isRAELITE. 77 

situation he relinquished in our behalf, his 
constant intercourse with the world of spirits^ 
and the manifold endowments which emi- 
nently qualified him for the office he sustain- 
ed, are stated and explained with minuteness 
and perspicuity. That he is the son of God, 
by a relation which no human capacity can 
fathom or comprehend ; that, even while 
conversing with contemporaries, he was in 
the Father^ and the Father in him\ that 
the instructions he delivered were framed 
by the authority under which he acted ; 
that the grand errand, for accomplishing 
which he tabernacled among men in a sor- 
did mansion of mortality, was the revelation 
of the divine will, for the ultimate hap- 
piness and perfection of our nature; and 
that the credentials of his mission consisted 
in his doing such works as no man could do 
except God xvas with him, are the parti- 
culars of that account which he gives oj^ him- 
self, which establishes the most satisfactory 
consistency between what he says and v/hc 
he is; and in the detail of which he certainly 
spake as never man spake, 
- Ji 2 



78 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

But what is there in the gospel to substan- 
tiate these extraordinary pretensions ? What 
might be expected from a person claiming 
such high distinctions, and coming on an 
embassy of such difficulty and importance ? 
What system of moral and religious truth 
would do most credit to his dignity as a 
spiritual being, and his office as consecrat- 
ed by the Father of Spirits, for the recovery 
and improvement of ours? Every part of 
the christian revelation discovers the just- 
est and the happiest correspondence with 
these prominent and striking features in the 
character of its Author. It gives validity 
to the prophecies of the Old Testament, 
stamps a reality and meaning on the com- 
plicated ritual of the Jewish w or ship, and 
exposes to infamy and contempt the scan- 
dalous imposture of the heathen mytlielogy. 

The force of this argument is not a little 
heightened and illustrated by the considera- 
tion that the world was in possession of no 
theories or documents whence this great 
Teacher of righteousness could borrow his 
materials. Both his character and religion 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 79 

were such singularities as had nothing si- 
milar or collateral in the ordinary course of 
things. He had no equal among the children 
of men in capacity and zeal for their welfare, 
and his conceptions of their highest inte- 
rests and concerns in the divine govern- 
ment were exclusively his own. These he 
seems to have formed, as he expressed, 
without the labour of study or reflection. 
No modifications of science, no refinements 
in philosophy, no train of ideas which hu- 
man genius could suggest or arrange, were 
in any degree accessary to the system he 
produced. It was as original as it was sa- 
lutary, and as natural as it was astonishing. 
From what data among the discoveries 
of the learned, the fictions of the poets or 
the speculations of the sages, could man- 
kind infer such features and principles as 
apply to the Author and system of Christi- 
anity. These are notwithstanding stated 
by him, on every occasion, as facts with 
which he was perfectly familiar, as ^ sci- 
ence which he could not but know, and in 
the truth of which he was too deeply in- 



80 PHILOSOPHY OF, &C. 



terested to be mistaken. They consequently 
drop from his lips with the same ease, are 
sometimes appealed to, with the same con- 
fidence, give the same colouring to the mis- 
cellaneous topics of his conversation, and 
have every way the same effect on his man- 
ners, which first impression and early opi- 
nions, strengthened by subsequent habit, ge- 
nerally discover and support through life. 
They are uttered and illustrated acciden- 
tally as time and circumstances bring them 
forth, like axioms of science, which, by im- 
plicating their own evidence, admit of no 
reasoning, but command conviction as soon 
as proposed. 



31 



PHILOSOPHY 



OF 



/ PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 



PART SECOND. 



Though the Saviour oF the world 
commenced his important undertaking in 
person, the completion of it was reserved for 
his apostles, \vhom he empowered and 
qualified for that purpose, after his depar- 
ture. These he solemnly commissioned or 
charged to go and teach all nations ^ baptiz- 
ing them in his name. The provision 
made for their punctually executing the 
functions of this high office is, that they 
w^ere amply endowed with the gift of work- 
ing miracles in confirmation of what they 
taught. And with this single preparation; 



82 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

deprived of every other resource, he dis- 
patched them on the arduous and important 
embassy of converting the world to the 
knowledge, the belief, and the practice of 
Christianity. 

It is a coincidence not the least w^onderful, 
in the history of so many wonders, that the 
gospel should be the production of a mind 
totally uncultivated ; and that its publication 
and successful application for the salvation 
of mankind, should be effected by the mi- 
nistration of persons, who, in all appearance, 
had no better means of intelligence I 

Indeed, the Author of Christianity might 
certainly have appeared in all the majesty of 
power, and subjected human agency to the 
same control which he manifested over 
every other department of nature. He 
who could still the tempest, bid the turbu- 
lent waves subside, cure the diseased of 
body and mind with a word, and with a 
word raise the dead, could surely have rid 
the world of wickedness by open expul- 
sion ; established a visible empire of good- 
ness in its room, subdued by armies of 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 83 

men as well as legions of angels the whole 
earth, ruled with all the insignia of a tem- 
poral sovereign the willing nations, and 
blessed the world with holy and just laws. 

In this eminent situation, had he punished 
guilt and protected innocence, made men 
better, and appropriated all his authority 
for rendering them wiser and happier, he 
would have merited more gratitude, and 
extorted more sincere and universal ap- 
plause, than any potentate that ever swayed 
a sceptre or wore a crown. But here the 
means would have been suited to the end, 
and the action proportioned to the agent. 
Human sagacity would then have traced 
the cause by the effect ; and on the princi- 
ples of common observation accounted for 
phenomena which have hitherto puzzled 
the learning and philosophy of all ages and 
nations. 

These advantages however are trivial in- 
deed, compared with the deliverance he 
-wrought for men in their dearest interests, 
=and the victories he gained over their worst 
and most inveterate foes. But how was the 



54 PHILOSOPHV OF A 

mighty work accomplished ! Not by force of 
arms ; not by worldly wisdom ; not by any 
thing earthly or human ; but by an expedient 
equally wonderful and unprecedented : by 
stooping to poverty and contempt ; by 
spurning at honour and submitting to in- 
dignity ; by yielding to an ignominious 
death, and publicly expiring like a malefac- 
tor on a cross ; by leaving the great object 
of his mission to be prosecuted, the truth of 
his character to be established, and the glo- 
ries of his resurrection to be substantiated 
and proclaimed, by a few ignorant and ob- 
scure men ; who, with no other arms than 
patience and meekness, and with no other 
art than speaking the truth, though opposed 
by the learned, persecuted by the powerful, 
and ridiculed by the witty, introduced and 
propagated a religion, which hath made his 
name and his salvation precious and desira- 
ble from the rising to the setting sun ! 

To such as consider Christianity in no 
higher view than as the fiction or invention 
of a carpenter's son, the executive capacity 
of fishermen may be deemed no improper 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 85 

counterpart. But is it not a new thing on 
the earth that a person of no pretensions 
above the vulgar, should disclose and teach 
a series of truths, which, for sublimity, 
importance, and utility, are equally new and 
interesting, attach himself not to the learned, 
the illustrious, or the mighty, but to men in 
the same indigent and low degree as him- 
self, treat them with unbounded confidence, 
pour into their bosoms his dearest con- 
cerns, and after making them masters of 
his system, leave it to their management? 
Could doctrines which attracted the notice 
of the wisest be safely entrusted with the ig- 
norant? Ancient sages, who were proud of 
establishing sects or schools, never thought 
of proselytes among the mean or illiterate. 
The moment their opinions became popu- 
lar, it was among the great, the wealthy, or 
the enlightened, they were solicitous to 
make converts. Even in our own time, 
what party, civil or religious, seem to value 
the largest accession of strength from any 
other quarter ? But his rehgion, w^ho Avas 
meek and lowly of hearty hath nothing in 



86 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

common with, and derives no consequence 
from, any modification of carnal policy. 
Its commencement was totally independent 
of the world, it was propagated by teachers 
who had no part of their education from the 
world, and a real conformity to its spirit 
still consists in living above the world and all 
that is in the world! 

What is the design of the gospel, but to 
propose or introduce something, to use a 
well-knowii phrase, like a new police^ a sys- 
tem of more refined and practical ethics for 
all men and all ages, involving the highest 
concerns of our nature, and sanctioned by 
all the energies of hope and of fear ? But 
how or by whom was a work of such mag- 
nitude to be accomplished ? All the phi- 
losophy and philosophers of all nations were 
obviously incompetent. The very idea 
seems to have been too big for mortal or 
finite invention. It is notwithstanding the 
suggestion of a plebeian Israelite, and 
as grand as unexpected ; as superior to the 
ordinary operations of human intellect as it 
is dissimilar to any anterior theory ,of jsci- 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 87 

ence or ethics ! Its author hath displayed, 
in every principle and spring of this wonder- 
fill and sublime work, such qualities and 
powers as instinctively command respect 
and excite inquiry ; and the agency by 
which it has been rendered efficient, seems 
not less supernatural than the capacity in 
which it originated. 

The great outlines of ^^hat his wisdom 
suggested, and his servants, inspired and 
guided by his spirit, taught and published 
in behalf of a lost world, v/ill give additional 
lustre and importance to our reasoning. 
These involve a series bf councils and trans- 
actions which, for the parties concerned, the 
interests secured, and the consequences en- 
tailed, have no resemblance or parallel even 
in human imagination, and wliich absolutely 
transcend whatever we can think or con- 
ceive ! In this sanctuary of holy science, 
thy goings^ O God, our King and Saviour, 
are seen, acknowledged, and admired, as all 
our salv?.tion and all our desire. 

Of this merciful and divine scheme, a 
serious and candid attention is solicited ta 



88 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

the following brief but substantial state- 
ment : It was ordained in the course of di- 
vine providence that the w^ord or wisdom of 
God should, at a certain predetermined 
time, appear in our nature and our world. 
This glorious Personage, actually commis- 
sioned by Heaven in a manner which could 
leave no doubt of his special authority and 
high capacity for answering ail the propiti- 
ous ends of his appointment, was in particu- 
lar to declare the whole mind and will of 
God for our present spiritual and everlast- 
ing w^eifare, to . explain and enforce the 
great unalterable terms of eternal life^ faith, 
repentance, and obedience; to instruct us 
in our duty, and to give us the strongest 
assurance of a future state of rewards and pu- 
nishments. He was also destined to deline- 
ate, in plain and perspicuous colours, a spot- 
less pattern of all perfection through the 
whole course of his own public life, to ex- 
emplify in human conduct the most diffi- 
cult virtues, and to furnish mankind with a 
complete practical standard of real excel- 
lence. But this was not alL It became 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 89 

the Captain of our salvation to he made per- 
feet through suffering, A series of awful 
humiliations and agonies which terminated 
in a cruel death, occasioned by his adhe- 
rence to God and the cause of goodness, 
were deemed necessary to ilhistrate his cha- 
racter, to estabUsh his doctrine, and to ren- 
der him an all- sufficient sacrifice fi)r the 
sins of the world. Nor was it less essential 
to the great original plan of our redemption, 
that, by our Redeemer's resurrection from 
the dead and ascension to the highest heavens, 
he should afford the most striking and ocu- 
lar demonstration of the future resurrection 
of all his faithful friends and followers, and 
of their ultimately participating with him of 
the glory to be revealed. It was finally pro- 
vided, as a reward for his consummate and 
extraordinary merit and obedience, that in 
the nature he assumed, and as head of the 
spiritual empire he formed, he should be ex- 
alted to the highest possible dignity and ho- 
nour, made a Prince and a Saviour, and 
empowered to bestow the pardon of sin, and^ 
all divine blessings, upon the sincere, he 

i2 



90 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

humble, and the contrite in heart ; to raise 
the dead, to judge the world, and to settle 
all his true subjects and servants in a new 
heaven and a new earth, where righteous- 
ness shall for ever dwell, where nothing can 
enter that is unhoh^, and where the glorified 
inhabitants shall have no more frailty and no 
more pain. 

Such is a brief imperfect account of that 
salvation which this poor despised Galilean 
divulged, and solemnly declared to be the 
contrivance and work, not of man, but of 
God, of which a dozen of mean fishermen 
were the original heralds, confessors, vouch- 
ers, apostles, and martyrs ; and which hath, 
notwithstanding, finally surmounted all the 
depressions and repulsive considerations 
which arise from circumstances of primitive 
©bscurit}'^ and poverty. 

INIark, then, with what unlikely instru- 
ments the hoi}' Jesus sets about an undertak- 
ing, on which thy thoughts, O God, were 
employed from everlasting! Twelve per- 
sons of low birth and of mean occupation, 
without patronage, or learning, or breeding. 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 91 

were sent into the midst of a knowing and 
sagacious world, to reason with and refute the 
most celebrated philosophers and sophists 
of Greece, to outwit and confound all the in- 
genuity of Athens, to silence all the Roman 
orators, to introduce into an empire but re- 
cently settled, and still impatient of novelty, 
such a revolution as must eventually des- 
troy all their temples, proscribe all their 
gods, and against the success of which all 
the zeal, all the passions, and all the most in- 
veterate prepossessions must be opposed. 

And what was their object ? Preaching 
a crucified Jesus by men thus destitute and 
contemptible in appearance, was appropri- 
ated and consecrated as the grand engine in 
the hand of Heaven for convulsing the whole 
fabric of paganism : and with no human 
provision, no implements of war, no maga- 
zines, no treasures, no armies, no means 
but their humble virtues, their prayers, 
and their holy confidence in the spirit and 
power of Jesus, their efforts were success- 
ful, and they effected such a change in the 
ininds and manners of men as all the com- 



9t PHILOSOPHY OF A 

binations of superstition, ignorance, and im- 
piety could not resist! a change whidi 
established new laws, and reversed old es- 
tablishments, and bartered one religion, 
under which the nations had long flourished, 
and Rome in particular obtained her great- 
est eminence, for another, in appearance 
mean, and humble, and meek, and peace- 
able, not apt to harm her enemies, but ex- 
posing her friends to all the harm in the 
world; abating their courage, blunting 
their swords, teaching harmony, inspiring 
love, turning soldiers into citizens, and im- 
pelling them to relinquish the military for 
the christian profession. This religion even 
contradicted reasons of state, erected new 
judicatories, and, by restraining the pas- 
sions of individuals, rendered courts of law 
obsolete and useless. While riches were 
universally coveted and adored, ambition 
esteemed the greatest honour, and pleasure 
thought the chief good, she soothed and 
countenanced the destitute, the pitiful, and 
the forlorn, and deigned to confer no privi- 
lege on the rich, or the mighty, but on 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 93 

condition that, in the best sense of the 
word, they should become poor, and hum- 
ble, and self-denied. 

Can it therefore be admitted, on the 
common principles of probability, that by 
any degree of human ingenuity alone, such 
a religion^ in such a crisis, and by such 
means, should thus triumph over the philo- 
sophy of the world, the sophistry of the 
subtile, the arguments of the eloquent, the 
power of princes, the interests of states, the 
inclinations of nature, the blindness of zeal, 
the force of custom, the pleasures of sin? 
tliat is, over wit, and power, and policy, 
and money, and obstinacy, and fame, and 
fashion, and empire ; a phalanx which, of 
all others, is most invulnerable, and most 
capable of rendering any thing impossible? 
No ; as well might we hope to span the 
heavens with the palm of an infant, or to 
govern the wisest kingdoms by diagrams. 

That Jesus Christ made invisible agents 
do him visible homage ; that his apostles 
hunted the daemons from their tripods, their 
groves, their temples, and their altars ; and 



94 PHILOSOPHY OF A 

that he abolished their orgies, and silenced 
their oracles, Lucian, Porphyry^ Celsus, 
and Other ingenuous heathens, confess. But 
it is the peculiar and distinguishing triumph 
of Christianity, that, under every disadvan- 
tage, it should flourish like the palm by 
pressure, grow illustrious by opposition, 
thrive by oppression, and even be substan- 
tiated by objections. 

The wonderful spectacle of a burning 
bush, which presented it:^elf to tlie Jewish 
lawgiver in tlie wilderness, is a lively type 
of the gospel, which lives in the fire as w ell 
as in the water, and is only not consumed 
because God is in it. 

The apostles were not learned, but re- 
ceived wisdom and direction from the 
Father of spirits, and, though literally with- 
out influence, were invested with power 
from 071 high. Ignorant and timid in them- 
selves, their divine Master enlarged their 
minds, and encouraged their hearts in the 
works of the Lord. He promised, after liis 
ascension, to endow them with the Holy 
Ghost, and ten davs were not elapsed when 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. 95 

they all perceived and felt a glorious ernis- 
sion from above, which wanned, enlighten- 
ed, and expanded their hearts, and the 
mighty rushing wind, which astonished all 
present, inspired them with the faculty of 
speaking divers languages, brought to their 
remembrance all that Jesus did and taught, 
made them wise to guide men to immor- 
tality, bold to venture, prudent to advise, 
powerful to work wonders, witty to confound 
and convince gainsay ers, eloquent and 
mighty in the scriptures, and gave them the 
spirit of government and the spirit of pro- 
phecy. 

This celebrated miracle was wrought 
with so much publicity, that three thousand 
souls were converted on the very spot, and 
at the very time it happened. It was a vi- 
sible demonstration of such an invisi- 
ble agency, as pervades every part of this 
supernatural dispensation, that those who 
never had been taught, should be masters at 
once of all the languages in the JRoman 
empire. Indeed, the thing itself was so 
necessary to be so, and so certain tliat it was 



96 PHILOSOPHY OP A 

SO, and so public, and so evident, and s^ 
reasonable, and so useful, that it is not easy 
to say, whether it indicated superior power 
or wisdom. 

Thus did the means become obviously 
and instantaneously adequate to the end pro- 
posed. Without learning, the apostles 
could not confute the learned world, there- 
fore God became their teacher; without 
power they could not resist the violence that 
environed them, therefore God was their 
strength; without courage they could not 
grapple with the united force of the Jewish 
and Gentile world, therefore God inspired 
them with patience and fortitude ; without 
great caution and foresight they could not 
avoid the snares and stratagems of crafty per- 
secutors, therefore God gave them prudence 
and made them provident. 

To render this demonstration still more 
palpable and undeniable, the apostles com- 
municated the spirit to others also, to Jews, 
Gentiles, and Samaritans, who likewise 
spake with tongues and prophesied ! Then 
did they preach the gospel to all nations. 



PLEBEIAN ISRAELITE. ^7 

endure all persecutions, cure all diseases, 
raise the dead to life, were brought before 
tribunals, confessed the name of Jesus, con- 
vinced the blasphemous Jews out of their 
own prophets, put the heathens to the blush 
by the absurdities of their own mythology, 
and not only made proselytes of women and 
weak men, but of the bravest and w^isest of 
all sexes and characters, who could not be 
such fools, as, upon a matter not certainly 
true, but probably false, to renounce their 
former principles, and change their liberty 
for a prison, wealth for poverty, honour for 
obloquy, and life for death, — had they not 
been deeply convinced that by such an ex- 
change they made themselves happy, and 
were for ever secure of truth and holiness, 
the friendship of heaven, and the salvation of 
their souls. 

Ye sons and daughters of a fahe and 
sceptical philosophy, which, by suppressing 
hope, robs the heart of ease, the conduct of 
principle, and renders the anticipations of 
futurity not a blessing but a curse, think a 
moment on the conclusion these remarks 



98 PHILOSOPHY OF, &C. 

are calculated to enforce. Compare .the 
system here analyzed with all other systems. 
Does it in any one feature, or tendency, or 
ppnciple, coincide with the barbarism of an 
untaught mind? Have you marked the 
common effects of poverty ? Is there ano- 
ther prepossession in society so absolutely 
insuperable? Are not the highest talents 
and the best virtues divested of their native 
loveliness and charms by rags and want ? 
Minds who recognize even these divine 
qualities, thus sunk, debased, and obscured,, 
must be more than human ! 

It was from beneath this enormous pres- 
sure, from behind this opaque cloud of ac- 
cumulated blackness, that the gospel origi- 
nally burst upon the world. The covering 
was so ponderous that an omnipotent hand 
only could draw^ it aside, so impervious that 
no lustre could pierce it whicli was not di- 
vine ! 
N. B. Some of the preceding pages, with 

only a trivial alteration in the language y 

are selected from Bishop Taylor'^s Moral 

Demonstration y ^c. 



99 



THE 



MAJESTY OF THE GOSPEL. 



Christianity, in common with 
every other species of religion, puts in her 
claim to a heavenly original. This is tlie 
single and decisive circumstance to which 
she demands our assent, on which she 
pledges her credit, and by which her influ- 
ence in the world, notwithstanding its pro- 
fligacy, is still very considerable. It cer- 
tainly w^ell becomes us, who avow the most 
solemn confidence in her veracity, who at- 
tach ourselves to her interest, and who re- 
gulate our tempers and manners, both by 
the precepts she enjoins and the examples 
she exhibits, to examine her spirit and pre- 



100 THE MAJESTY 

tensions with sincerity, coolness, and impar- 
tiality. 

Is the leading and prevailing object then, 
of this singular and comprehensive institu- 
tion, in all respects worthy of God ? Do 
its most obvious and prominent features 
correspond to such as are every where con- 
spicuously imprinted on all his other works? 
Do the numerous provisions it involves and 
adopts, for securing its final accomplishment, 
cordially harmonize with the general plan 
of divine providence ? Is the system com- 
pounded of such a variety of astonishing ar- 
ticles, as obviously exceed the sublimest ex- 
tent of human capacity or contrivance? 
Are those strong and eternal distinctions 
between right and wrong, which reason 
in her most enlightened stage, which nature 
in the simplest and purest times, and w^hich 
all ages, in their highest state of improve- 
ment, have stamped with every mark of 
authenticity, in no respect whatever injured 
or relaxed ? 

To all these rational and important requi- 
sitions, the gospel enables and commands 



OF THE GOSPEL. 101 

her disciples to give the most obvious, une- 
quivocal, and satisfactory answer. The Re- 
ligion of Jesus approves herself to the con- 
sciences and affections of men with an open, 
ardess, undesigning sincerity. Like Inno- 
cence, she is never so lovely and engaging 
as in her own pure, unadorned, and heavenly 
form. It is not her nature or her interest 
to shuffle or prevaricate. Error or Falsehood 
may nestle in the shades of subtilty and re- 
finement, but she whose chief characteristic 
is truth, has not the most distant alliance 
with any one species of darkness or disguise; 
We need but look at her, with our own 
eyes, to be satisfied she is no impostor. 
Eveiy thing in her aspect and appearance, 
but especially the simplicity, majesty, meek- 
ness, and mercy, which distinguish her in- 
ternal character, demonstrate her to be of 
no earthly or mortal extraction. 

The brevity to which the argument is con- 

, fined, will only permit me at present to 

mention a few particulars in confirmation 

of this most important and interesting trutli. 

But to these the reader's candid and serl- 

k2 



102 THE MAJESTY 

ous attentiofi is the more indispensable, that 
the world in general seems to be no longer 
impressed by them. Surely every man 
would do well to be fully satisfied in his 
own mind, that truth is on his side, before 
he suffer himself, in a mean compliance 
with the puerilities of custom, to treat the 
doctrines or duties of religion with ridicule, 
indifference, or neglect. 



IN ITS DESIGN. 

It cannot so much as be once called in 
question, that the great and ultimate design 
of Christianity is peculiarly noble, and alto- 
gether worthy of God. 

Can any thing be more suitable to that 
perfect goodness which eternally resides 
in the Father of the universe, than to com- 
plete the happiness of his own moral, intel- 
ligent, and immortal offspring ? What, in 
the accomplishment of their salvation from 
guilt and miseiy, is beneath his benignity to 
propose, his mercy to forgive, his wisdom 



OF THE GOSPEL. 103 

to devise, his power to execute, or the ma- 
jesty of his government to administer ? In- 
deed, the best and wisest purposes, and 
whatever seems most compatible with the 
dignity and grandeur of Providence, are all 
eminently and obviously consulted by the 
restoration of mankind to a state of purity, 
perfection, and happiness. 

When we consider the intrinsical worth of 
the human soul, does it not strike us as 
vastly superior to all the other creatures we 
know ! Of all the visible creation around 
us, surely she alone, as capable of loving, re- 
sembling, and enjoying her Maker to eter- 
nal ages, is much more excellent and pre- 
cious than the whole system of inanimate 
matter ! 

To make but one man happy for a short 
uncertain life, is an action that would not 
disgrace the greatest monarch that ever filled 
a throne. Nor have we any reason to sup- 
pose the everlasting felicity of one immor- 
tal creature, conferred singly or individual- 
ly, at all unbecoming the M jesty of hea- 
ven. But how unspeakably more adeq^uate 



104 THE MAJESTY- 

to the constant exercise of divine benevo- 
lence, must it not be, to redeem the souls of 
millions ! How becoming the greatest, the 
widest, and the best of beings, to contrive a 
scheme for giving full and permanent effect 
to this noble and divine purpose ! 

Such is the glorious and exalted object to 
which the whole revelation of God is di- 
rected; such that majestic system of mercy 
and immortality brought to light by the 
gospel; imd such that gracious and benevo- 
lent design whicl) Christianity unfolds and 
carries on so much to the honour of its Au- 
thor, and the best interests of the human 
race. This, therefore, as it constitutes the 
leading feature in the internal character of 
religion, may at least be considered as one 
presumption of its truth. 

IN ITS ANALOGY TO NATURE. 

The scheme of Christianity is obviously 
analogous to what we see take place in the 
course of divine Providence in many other 
and lower instances. 



OF THE GOSPEL. 105 

Thus, when we contemplate the history 
of the human race in past ages, we cannot 
but observe that very frequently, by the 
means or instrumentality of some one dis- 
tinguished person, raised up as it were on 
purpose, great deliverances from distress and 
misery, with other eminent blessings, have 
been procured to vast multitudes of his 
fellow-creatures. A particular nation, or 
perhaps several nations, groaning under the 
violent oppression of some tyrant or tyrants, 
have been often rescued by the single ad- 
dress of one eminently distinguished by his 
talents and virtues. 

How many illustrious heroes are, on 
this account alone, enrolled in the annals of 
human story, as the saviours of their coun- 
try ! Others, born in a state of savage igno- 
ranee, have yet been so happily circum- 
stanced, and -so highly favoured by nature, 
as to become the chief or principal means 
of raising from rudeness and barbarity, of 
enlightening, civilizing, and polishing a 
whole people. 



106 THE MAJESTY 

In many societies, where almost every 
science and art are brought to the highest 
state of perfection, we sometimes see a 
mighty genius arise, tower above the rest of 
his species, and, like a being of superior 
order, enlighten men's understandings-, and, 
by enlarging the circle of human science, 
considerably enrich human life. 

And does not the leading fact in the gos- 
pel tally exactly with these ? The cases are 
precisely the sarne in the nature, and differ 
only in degree. Consequently we find what 
happens daily in the world, that the abilities 
of one man, in particular countries and on 
singular occasions, may procure the most 
important advantages for millions. Is it 
not even in the ordinary and settled plan of 
Providence, therefore, that one great person, 
superior in dignity to angels, should be 
ordained and established the sole enlighten - 
er, reformer, and Saviour of mankind. 



OF THE GOSPEL. 107 

IN ITS GRANDEUR AND SUBLIMITY, 

This glorious system of revealed truth 
has something in it so very grand and sub- 
Hme, so much above the common reach of 
human conception, that we cannot possibly 
imagine how it could have entered into the 
head of any man to propose, but on suppo- 
sition of its truth, and that the truth was 
communicated to him in a supernatural 
manner. 

There are few of the greatest discoveries, 
that ever were made by the greatest of men, 
for which some account may not be given, 
how they were found out. Whatever 
among the arts or sciences is most useful, 
most mysterious, 'or most intricate, we can 
trace to the accident, the circumstance, or 
the capacity, by which it "is made known. 
This is especially the case in many depart- 
ments of natural philosophy, in mechanics, 
in geometry, in the great laws of gravita- 
tion and attraction, which rule the planetary 
Vv'orld, and is the only solution which ren- 



108 THE MAJESTY 

ders the wonderful phenomena of the hea- 
venly bodies intelligible. And indeed, in 
every species of human invention or im- 
provement, we actuall}^ recognize the fact, 
and are, in most instances, able to couple it 
with its author or its origin. 

But how it should strike a man, who 
knew himself to be no more than a man, that 
he came forth from the Father^ that he ac- 
tually dwelt in the Father^ and the Father in 
him^ that he knew God fully and adequate- 
ly, and was in the sole and exclusive posses- 
sion of this divine science ; that his chief 
business in the world was to make men ac- 
quainted with the character, providence, and 
works of their Maker ; that for this impor- 
tant purpose he was vested with the most 
sovereign power and authority ; that under 
his ministration a new state of things should 
be introduced into the moral world ; that to 
attest the validity of his character he should 
publicly lay down his life, resume it again in 
three days by rising from the dead, and 
visibly ascend into heaven ; that his follow- 
ers should propagate, with incredible success 



@F THE GOSPEX. 109 

and perseverance, his religion among men ; 
that at a certain but distant period he should 
return again in the capacity and credentials 
of the sovereign Judge of the universe, pos- 
sessed with supreme might and authority to 
raise the dead, openly to pronounce on their 
fate, and to make an awful and eternal sepa- 
ration between the righteous and the wick- 
ed; and that all this he should assert invari- 
ably in the mobt familiar language, with a 
simplicity perfecdy genuine, and a humility 
singularly amiable — seems to our apprehen- 
sions altogether inexplicable ! 

Can we suppose a common or ordinary 
person capable of disclosing those new and 
surprising scenes of Providence? those 
great mysteries of futurity? those various 
grand and leading events which consti- 
tute the spiritual and invisible kingdom and 
government of God ? 

Who among the sons of men, without 
the genius of inspiration, could have in- 
vented a scheme or system so sublime, so 
connected, involving such interesting, vast, 
and important consequences, stretching be-- 

L 



110 THE MAJESTY 

yond the grave, rising far above this earthy 
penetrating into the highest heavens, and re- 
vealing councils of the Almighty, which 
shall extend to eternity? 

There is surely something in these pre- 
tensions peculiarly noble and elevated. 
Are they not exceedingly remote even from 
all the most lofty conceptions which have, 
in every age, distinguished the brightest 
minds? Do they not reflect a novelty, a ma- 
jesty, and a grandeur, which divinity alone 
could bestow? 

We never read of any other person who 
assumed such prerogatives. Jesus Christ is 
the only one, who, in the character of a 
teacher and reformer, declares he came im- 
mediately yrc?m God^ being the Son of God, 
having God in him, supreme dominion dele- 
gated to him, and retaining it, until all 
the ends of this exalted appointment 
-should be accomplished. Such an extraor- 
dinary phenomenon could not possibly ori- 
ginate in the thoughts of any mortal man. 

We have heard of many who afiected 
to correspond with gods or goddesses for 



OF THE GOSPEL. Ill 

some very confined view, to swell their own 
personal importance, or, at best, to gain 
a certain degree of reverence or regard for 
some laws and regulations they wished to es- 
tablish. But here is one who not only pre- 
tends intercourse with God, but that God 
was in him, that he proceeded forth and 
eame from God, not for a fev/ benefits or 
particular regulations, but on a much grand* 
er and nobler design, having no less an ob- 
ject in view than the everlasting good and 
happiness of the whole human race. 

These things united form a strong pre- 
sumption, that the gospel may be true, and 
should be a sufficient inducement for every 
lover of truth and friend of virtue to exa- 
mine the other evidences with which it is 
connected and supported. This presumption 
is the more remarkable, that we find all the 
disciples of our Saviour still continuing: alto- 
gether unanimous in their accounts of these 
high matters. If what they taught concern- 
ing the dignity of Jesus, the transactions of 
futurity, and the mysterious depths of the 
divine government, had been the fictions of 



112 THE MAJESTY 

I . 

their own brain, or their masters, we cannot 
well conceive how they could have been 
thus minutely and invariably consistent. 
Enthusiasm is at least a kind of changeable 
or fluctuating thing, and seldom continues 
the same. 



4. IN ITS ADOPTION OF NATURAL RE- 
LIGION. 

That the whole doctrines of natural reli- 
gion, in the most pure and perfect form 
which the human understanding can con- 
ceive, is taught in the gospel, completes the 
internal evidence of this holy and. sublime 
institution. 

If our Saviour, or any one having such 
pretensions as he had, once were detected 
teaching aught concerning God, and provi- 
dence, and the great rules of morality, un- 
worthy of his high pretensions, it would 
be natural to suspect, that he assumed a 
character and oflfice which did not belong tp 
him. But if not only the whole of his teach- 



OY THE GOSPEL. ^ ll3 

ing, but the uniform tenor of his life, was 
altogether suitable and becoming these high 
claims, the truth and certainty of his mis- 
sion seem established^ on an evidence which 
no sophistry whatever can henceforth either 
affect or undermine. 

This is the key- stone of that stately and 
sublime arch, which reaches from earth to 
heaven ; which elevates and amplifies our 
views of human destiny ; which realizes all 
our hopes of happiness ; and which renders 
immortality accessible to mortals. This 
knits, consoKdates, and keeps the whole to- 
gether. Remove this, and the entire fabric 
of mercy, glorious and majestic as it now 
appears, tumbles into ruins. For that only 
can come from God which coincides with 
the nature of his government, and the be- 
nignity of his providence. All his dealings 
with all his creatures proceed on maxims of 
inviolable goodness and the purest rectitude^, 
and whatever does not, cannot possibly be. 
from him. 



9 



114 THE MAJESTY, &C* 

CONCLUSION. 

Such are the strong and expressive sig- 
natures of truth, by which the reUgion of 
Christ challenges our attention and confi- 
dence. These go no inconsiderable length 
in demonstrating that this institution is di- 
vine. 

Whoever, therefore, does not cordially 
embrace it, does not lay their whole hearts 
open to its saving influence, and does not 
place their whole dependence for eternal 
happiness on a faithful compliance with the 
terms it prescribes, is guilty of treating that 
sacred and awful authority which enjoins it 
with the grossest contempt. 

And consequently by rejecting revealed, 
we do the greatest indignity to the first and 
most fundamental maxim of natural reli- 
gion, that obedience is due to God in what- 
ever instance his authority is clearly inter- 
posed. 



115 



TBE 



GOSPEL OUR ONLY HOPE. 



Wo be to man, were all his desires 
and felicities confined to the poor, scanty, 
precarious enjoyments of the present? 
Weil then might his heart instinctively re- 
volt from every aspect of human destiny. 
And, alas ! what better or more consolatory 
are all the prospects of philosophy ! Not a 
syllable can be gathered from this boasted 
source of wisdom to substantiate our hopes 
beyond the grave. From aught we have 
yet learned, by all the discoveries of reason, 
a life chiefly marked by its brevity and sor- 
row finally closes the scene, and terminates 
all that is or can be interesting to mortals in 
uncertainty or oblivion. 



116 THE GOSPEL 

In fact, nature, unassisted by revelation, 
affords no satisfactory intelligence about the 
great objects of our hopes and our fears. 
The only authentic information she vouch- 
safes, and with which we cannot be mis- 
taken, is, that the present world is a scene 
of suffering and not of enjoyment. On the 
one hand, impelled by the instigation of 
appetite, and on the other, checked by the 
restraints of conscience, we are often the 
sport of both, and never in perfect subjec- 
tion to either. Infancy is lost amidst a 
multitude of toys, tender anxieties, and 
abortive pursuits — youth amidst dreams of 
fruition, visionary imaginations, and all the 
teasing inquietudes of a susceptible nature-^ 
manhood 2iXvi\d.'^X. the vicissitudes of fortune, 
the requisitions of futuritv, and the torture 
of disappointment — and age amidst all those 
langours of body and peevish dejections of 
mind, recollections painted with regret, and 
anticipations darkened by despondency ; the 
pangs of a frame verging on dissolution, 
and a thousand solicitudes big with appre- 
hension, which cloud and sadden the latest 
periods of humanity. 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 117 

There is in truth no thinking what we are, 
for what purpose made, or whether destin- 
ed, without indulging a thousand serious 
and painful anxieties. To us the annals of 
the world are for the most part enigmatical. 
The succession of one age, one generation, 
and one fugitive combination of circum- 
stances, is just as constant and uniform as 
that of the seasons. Are not all our ances- 
tors what we shall soon be ? swept from the 
records of the living, with the miserable ex- 
ceptions of a few forlorn creatures, who here 
and diere, like the mangled and scattered 
relics of a forest after a hurricane, are left 
friendless and alone, to bend under the dou- 
ble pressure of age and evil. 

And what is there in all the world can 
promise, fancy devise, or reason suggest, to 
repress or meliorate these mortifying reflec- 
tions? Were they dependent on the tem- 
perature of the atmosphere, or the aspects 
of fortune, humour of body, or caprice of 
mind, like common ailments^ they might 
admit of "a common cure. But their causes 
are infinitely more deep, more extensive, 



118 THE GOSPEL 

and more affecting; they originate in solici- 
tudes which associate with all the best and 
last hopes of the heart. And what have 
the greatest and dearest interests of eternity 
to do with temporary and visionary consi- 
derations? 

Under all these complicated and incum- 
bent evils, nothing but the gospel can afford 
immediate and effectual relief. It raises 
and expands the heart, by a discovery and 
the full assurance of something in reserve, 
which will more than compensate all our 
present sufferings. This bears us up, and 
even keeps our minds composed and se- 
rene, under every difficulty;: disarms op- 
pression of its rod; repels the blustering 
effrontery of vice; lightens the burden of 
affliction; turns aside the envenomed ar- 
rows of detraction; and even gives 
strength and courage to look at death and 
the grave with coolness and tranquillity. It 
enables us to balance what we are with 
what we may yet be ; the griefs we bear 
with the joys we expect; the wants we feel 
with the inheritance we have in view; the 
fieeting embarrassments of time with the 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 11& 

permanent and substantial enjoyments of 
eternity. 

Tlie doubts entertained on this subject 
are endless, and, without complete confi- 
dence in the word of God, unanswerable. 
They demonstrate the petulance of the hu- 
man understanding, which, especially in 
matters of the highest moment, would al- 
ways be wise above what is written. But 
in what ought to affect us all with a pressure 
equal to the magnitude of the interest every 
one has at stake, the question with each of 
us is, What advantage can be derived from 
an obstinate rejection of this^r^a^ salvation? 
Why anxiously meet and realize a destiny 
which the strongest propensities of our na- 
tures impel us to avoid? Why regard 
those prospects and expectations with suspi- 
cion which correspond to all the warmest de- 
sires of our hearts ? Why, as the prophet 
more elegantly urges the same affecting ac- 
cusation, pursue lying vanity^ and forsake 
your own mercy? 

In vain does the heart of man seek for 
indulgence in ser^ual gratification, extent 



12f) THE GOSPEL 

of fortune, brilliant equipage, or unrivalled 
power. The pleasures, preferments, and 
profits of life, are desirable only while 
health and spirits last. How tiresome to 
the sickly and splenetic are the most deli- 
cate enjoyments of taste and fashion ! 
Whatever the generality pursue with 
eagerness and rapture, has no charms for 
the diseased in body or mind. All those 
gaieties which unite and intoxicate the num- 
erous votaries of luxury and parade, which 
gild the present scene of distraction and 
mischief, which quash the genuine workings 
of humanity, and which give birth to what- 
ever embroils the interest, or mars the har- 
mony, of society, are in their best estate 
empty, fantastic, and perishing. 

Surely, their situation miist be lamenta- 
ble, and their distress occasionally exquisite, 
who have no higher motives of conduct, 
?'and no sublimer sources of delight. They 
hear not the voice of conscience, for the 
clamour of passion, nor feel the obliga- 
tions of duty, for the calls of appetite. It 
is interest, or convenience, or humour, 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 121 

which gives law to the greatest, minutest, 
and best actions of their lives. Principles 
of benevolence, or generosity, or honour, 
seldom or never affect them. Alive only 
to suggestions of pride, demands of fashion, 
eccentricities of whim, or the edicts of ex- 
ample, they are the perpetual dupes of all 
those fantastic gewgaws which shroud the 
world in masquerade, and render one half 
of the species objects of raillery and con- 
tempt to the other. 

Is this happiness ? Is it not rather mi- 
sery in disguise? Alas! what pleasures 
can it yield ? what sorrows abate ? w hat 
calamities lessen ? It may amuse or flatter 
their rising fancies in the morning of life ; 
it may add a momentary glow to their spi- 
rits in the flower and giddiness of youth ; 
it may heighten their beauty in the bloom 
and vigour of health ; it may even shed 
a semblance of gaiety and good-humour 
over the most flagitious manners, while the 
tide of fortune swells, and the delirium of 
luxury and intemperance rages ; but it will 
not keep their hearts at rest in the midst of 

M 



122 THE G0SI»EL 

disasters or disease. It requires but a little 
penury or pain to extinguish all their joys, 
darken all their prospects, and embitter all 
their feelings. And who has not seen a 
disordered stomach, an intemperate pulse, 
or even the aching of a toe, make the owner 
of millions quake and tremble ? 

Nor are they more successful, who apply 
for a solution of the difficulty to the frigid 
suggestions of a sceptical philosophy. 
What useful lessons are we not taught by 
their experience ? Their prejudices against 
the gospel may help them to raise a laugh, 
or pass for wits, among the worthless and 
profane, give zest to their ribaldry, or fur- 
nish a temporary apology for want of prin- 
ciple, whilea flow of prosperity distinguishes 
their fortunes, while their health continues 
uninjured, and their spirits unbroken by dis- 
ease, and while sanguine expectations of 
life stifle the indications of futurity. But 
follow them to a scene of sorrow, or a bed 
of sickness. Let Providence strip them of 
their wealth, or the hand of Affliction seize 
them with debility. Where then are the 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 123 

doubts which they raised against God, 
their sarcasms on revelation, the miserable 
ridicule they hazarded on all that is pleasing 
or dreadful in futurity ? Do they reap any 
enjoyment, or any consolation from the re- 
collection of their sophistry or their blasphe- 
mies ? Alas ! their tenets, which have al- 
ways shocked the best of men, even fill 
their own hearts with dismay, and chili 
them with horror, when' poverty comes 
upon them like an armed man; when they 
lose their strength, their friends, and their 
comforts ; when labouring for breath, or 
roaring with pain ; when all the re- 
sources of physic, folly, and impiety are 
exhausted ; Avhen nothing stares them in 
the face but infamy or dissolution ! Is it 
now, that ease of mind can be derived from 
the criminal levities of a licentious fancy, 
or the daring paradoxes of perverted ge- 
nius ? No. These are the great occasions 
which call forth and realize the supernatural 
energies of religion, which demonstrate the 
gospel of Christ to be the one thing need- 



124 tHE GOSPEL 

ful^ which substantiate all the presumptions 
in its behalf, and which stamp the prospects 
of futurity with certainty and truth. 

What is there in life to render it eligible, 
or even supportable, without the hopes and 
assurances of immortality? But for the con- 
viction that the dead are blessed, wretched 
were the situation of the living. This sen- 
sibly mitigates all our present hardships, 
and wafts our wishes and our hearts at once 
above and beyond them. For all the sages 
that ever flourished in any part of the world 
have been strangly duped, and the best de- 
sires of ail mankind most wantonly and uni- 
versally abused, if our ultimate felicity and 
perfection do not make part in the great and 
merciful system of Providence. There, all 
our purest propensities point as naturally as 
our dliFerent appetites, to their respective 
objects of gratification. And why, or for 
what, should w^e relinquish a prospect so 
adequate to all we wish and all we w^ant ? 

Forgive our ignorance and credulity, ye 
mighty adepts in reason and refinement! 
We resign to you the honours, the tri- 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 125 

umphs, and the advantages of superior saga- 
city : only inveigle not us in the same per- 
plexities with you; nor darken our hemi- 
sphere with those dismal and portentous 
clouds which habitually settle in yours. 
Continue to impeach the wisdom which go- 
verns the world, and the goodness which 
made you what you are ; but impose not 
your dogmas on us, at the dreadful expence 
of our peace. We envy you not, whatever 
satisfaction you enjoy, in the conviction, 
that there is neither good nor evil, nor any 
thing to alarm or allure, in the fears and 
hopes which agitate our hearts ; that the 
world is without a Maker, nature without a 
guide, life without design, and man, im- 
mersed as he is in misery, without redress. 
Suffer us to be ignorant and happy, and we 
leave you to be wise and wretched. While 
you, like the fowls of heaven and the beasts 
of the field, are satisfied to enjoy your season, 
and yield, in your turn, to a succession of 
the same evanescent existence, we will pre» 
sume with humility and gratitude, notwith- 
standing all your surmises and imputations, 

M 2 



126 THE GOSPEL 

that there is a period and place appointed 
and appropriated, in the ordination of Hea- 
ven, where, in due time, we shall yet be as 
perfect as virtue, and as blessed as good- 
ness can make us. Let us indulge with 
patient perseverance the pleasing and trium- 
phant expectation, that in this kingdom of 
righteousness the heart is not blinded by 
passion, nor the understanding darkened 
with doubts, that all animosity is extin- 
guished, that the sweet exchanges of mu- 
tual esteem are not henceforth checked or 
suspended by the chilling apprehension of 
breach or separation, and that society is no 
longer debased or degraded by the etiquette 
of pride, the petulance of wealth, the scram- 
bles of ambition, the enormities of vice, the 
vulgarities of the vile, or the indecencies of 
the low. 

To this happy result of things, the aspect 
of Christianity, in perfect unison with all our 
best and sublimest sentiments, is invariably 
directed. Many philosophers have recom- 
mended a course of virtuous conduct from 
its intrinsic excellence, its infiuence on 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 127 

the happiness of society, the hope of re- 
wards, and the fears of punishments in ano- 
ther world. But all their reasoning is hypo- 
thetical. The arguments they bring for- 
ward to instruct us in the momentous con- 
cerns of eternity are so subtile, so inde- 
cisive, so equivocal, and their descriptions 
of the scenes to which they refer for the con- 
summation of our hopes or our fears, are so 
sensual and so low, that they have little or no 
effect on the lives and hearts of men. It is 
the prerogative of our Sdviour alone to 
bring life and immortality to light by the 
gospel This glorious and divine privi- 
lege, which dignifies and distinguishes our 
race, is not darkly insinuated, but clearly 
revealed; not hinted superficially in a few 
places, but interwoven with all his doc- 
trines, all his precepts, and all his promises, 
confirmed by his resurrection from the 
dead, and exemplified by his accession as our 
head, representative, and forerunner to the 
right hand of the Majesty on high. Thus is 
he, the salvation of ail the ends of the earth, a 
light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory 



128 THE GOSPEL 

of his people Israel. His doctrine is gold tried 
in the fir e^ which maketh richy andaddeth no 
sorrow^ the salve which openeth the eyes of 
the blind, the balm which heals the xvounded 
in spirit', his grace is sufficient Jbr us, and 
his strength made perfect in our weakness; 
his word is a light unto our feet, and a lamp 
unto our path; and his name ever was, and 
ever shall be, precious to them that believe. 



EXPOSTULATION. 

And do ye thus requite the Lord, O 
foolish and unwise ! Why, by so much 
eagerness and assiduity to render your sys- 
tem popular, facilitate the introduction of 
whatever is most inimical to personal pro- 
bity and public decorum ? Can you do 
any thing worse than destroy the morals, 
the hopes, and the happiness of your fellow- 
creatures ? The genius and industry daily 
prostituted, on this stale disgusting topic, 
might surely be more honourably, more 
pleasingly, and more profitably occupied. 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 129' 

Were you better acquainted with that 
true and venerable Christianity which the 
writings of the evangelists and apostles ex- 
hibit in all its native purity and simplicity, 
but which yoxi^ ignorantly and prematurely 
depreciate, you would see it so full of wis- 
dom, beauty, grace, and divinity, as must 
overwhelm your strongest prejudices, press 
it upon your constant attention and practice, 
and attach your hearts to its interests, as 
the most admirable, useful, and heavenly 
doctrine ever the world enjoyed. We are 
taught to believe many of you men of emi- 
nent abilities, strict morals, friends of man- 
kind, and lovers of decency and orders 
Whence then your dislike of an institution 
which, under the sanction of divine author- 
ity, and the dread of a judgment to come, en- 
joins the cultivation and exercise of every 
virtue which can render men easy in their 
own minds, and a blessing to their fellow- 
creatures ; and which is also calculated to 
check, to criminate, and to punish, what- 
ever has a tendency to mar the comfort or 
quiet of human life? 



130 THE GOSPEL 

That the gospel, while new, untried, and 
inimical to all the deep-rooted vices, errors, 
passions, and prepossessions which govern 
and debase the minds of men, should meet 
with difficulty, contradiction, and enmities 
of all kinds, was no more than might have 
been expected from the nature of the case 
and the temper of the world. But now tliat 
it has been so long and so generally receiv- 
ed, the propriety and utility of its rules ap- 
proved by the experience of ages, settled by 
legislative wisdom and civil establishments 
In all enlightened nations, and rejected only 
by ignorance, barbarism, bigotry, and idol- 
atry; that it has been at issue and under dis- 
cussion nearly two thousand years, stood 
the severest ordeal of debate, admitted all 
the liberty its opponents could desire, and 
heard and refuted every objection of the 
most eloquent and the most learned, both in 
ancient and modern times; that it has finally 
become an essential part of our boasted con- 
stitution, and is secured by the best laws 
human sagacity could devise, and even sanc- 
tioned by the most solemn oaths, tendered in 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 131 

the most solemn manner to our princes and 
magistrates; might we not fondly and mo- 
destly presume every tongue would be 
charmed into silence, and every pen sus- 
pended from abusing a system thus wise in 
its direction, thus powerful in its influ- 
ence, and thus manifestly conducive to uni- 
versal felicity? .- 

One would imagine it altogether incredi- 
ble a religion so harmless, so orderly, and so 
beneficial as this, should find anv enemies. 
Can the love of truth, zeal for the honour of 
God, concern for the happiness of man, or 
even the strongest self-interest, give any ra- 
tional account of your conduct who use it 
unkindly? Why labour so eagerly for dis- 
ciples while it is so much your interest that 
all the rest of mankind thought and believ- 
ed otherwise? 

What have you to supply the place of the 
scheme you vilify and depreciate ? Is it a 
dark impracticable theory of what is called 
natural religion, and which ultimately comes 
to no more than that every man may be left 
to do what he pleases? Do ye seriously 



132 THE GOSPEL 

think this a competent provision and secu- 
■ rity for the peace and felicity of the world? 
Common sense, and a prudent soHcitude 
for present ease and convenience, should 
dispose you to let us alone in the calm enjoy- 
ment of a delusion so pleasing, so useful, 
and so indispensable, to a rational support 
and confidence under the various calamities 
of life, and all the fears of death ; and to 
restrain the corrupt propensities and unruly 
passions of men from unhinging govern- 
ment, spurning all authority and laws hu- 
man and divine ; dissolving all ties of 
subordination and dependency ; embroiling 
equally every department of society, and 
filhng the whole world with violence and 
uproar ! How unreasonable and impious 
the attempt to persuade us against the con- 
viction and practice of what combines our 
hopes and fears in our best interests; en- 
joins a worship of the divinest simplicity ; 
^nd enforces, by the noblest prospects and 
motives, so chaste, so commanding, and so 
holy a system of the siiblimest and most 
perfect morality and piety ! Every wise 



&UK ONLY HOPE. " 133 

and good man, who wishes his own or his 
neighbour's welfare, must condemn you, 
and resolve industry and zeal, thus strangely 
misapplied, into a species of the most in- 
corrigible obstinacy or vanity, altogether 
culpable and incurable. 

It is a consideration as terrible to you as 
comfortable to us who believe the gospel, 
that we are safe in proportion to the risk you 
hazard from its reality. Even supposing it 
to prove at last all falsehood and priestcraft, 
as you allege, we certainly lose nothing 
worth keeping. We live more happily in 
this world than you do, form better hopes 
and more enlivening prospects ; our food is 
sweeter, our sleep sounder, all nature more 
charmjng, and death less terrible. Nor can 
we be in a worse situation than you, though 
there were not another. But, in the firm 
conviction of a future state of rewards and 
punishments, how superlatively preferable 
is our case to yours ! 

In one word, the arguments upon which 
we credit the gospel revelation are so fair, 
so rational, and so conclusive; the mira- 

N 



134 THE GOSPEL 

cles to which it appeals are so well attested, 
and in their nature and circumstances so evi- 
dent proofs of divine approbation ; the mo- 
rality it prescribes is so just and excellent, 
so worthy of God and beneficial to man, be- 
yond whatever was taught before ; and the 
marks and characters of its heavenly origi- 
nal are so many, and all so palpable and un- 
impeachable, that our grateful submission to 
it as the grand ordination of heaven for the 
recoverv and salvation of a lost world, can 
never be imputed to us as a crime. God 
forbid this should be your condemnation — 
that light hath come into the worlds and you 
have chosen darkness rather than light ! 

Forgive this brief attention to a class of 
mitn who do honour to no rank of life, 
whose tenets are always in the way of the 
best advice, and who have no credit or con- 
sequence from these but what are derived 
from the worst passions of the human heairt. 
Avoid their company as you would that of 
persons infected by^the plague ; and regard 
their principles, however embelHshed by 
witj adorned by the graces of eloquence, or 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 135 

disguised and made plausible by the sophis- 
tries of false reasoning, as the elements of a 
science, which would soon reduce society 
to a chaos of misery ; which the worst only 
practise against the best, and which is the 
fertile source of all the villany and guilt that 
daily outrage every human and divine re- 
strj^int. Whatever they may think of our 
credulity, their scepticism must be wrong, 
because deroo-atorv to tlie best and deurest 
privileges of our nature, and utterlj^ inconi- 
paiible with our welfare as men and ci- 
tizens ! 



EXPERIENCE SUBSTANTIATES RELI- 
GION*. 

It was not only a characteristic of the 
iSlits^hh to preach the gospel to the poor, but 

* This section is extracted almost vei-batim 
from a sermon preached by the late Rev. Dr. 
Cuming, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, be- 
fore the society in Scotland. for propagating chris- 



136 THE GOSPEL 

that the poor should derive both present and 
future felicit}^ from this pecuUar privilege. Its 
energy on the human heart, under the exer- 

tian knowledge^ in the year 1760, and since repub- 
lished in the Scotch Preacher: and whoever would 
be charnaed with the beauties of a fine composition, 
see the futility of most objections against religion, 
or contemplate the strong body of evidence by 
which the claims of it are 'supported, can consult 
nothing in the language more capable of giving 
the fullest satisfaction. This most excellent ser- 
mon is dictated in the genuine and liberal spirit of 
a real advocate for the best interests of mankind. 
As all his earnestness evidently arose from a love 
of truth, he argued and spake as he felt and wish- 
ed others to feel. Kis eloquence is therefore the 
natural expression of a mind penetrated and im- 
pressed with a sense of divine things, ami of a 
heart duly warmed by the loveliness and majesty 
of Vv^hat he said. Few religious tracts, and espe- 
cially tracts in religious controversy, discover so 
much simplicity and sweetness in the style, such 
sublimity and nature in the sentiment, or are so 
happily calculated to gain the heart as well as the 
judgment: and he who can peruse what is here 
suggested in behalf of revelation, and yet continue 
to think it an imposture, must be under the influ- 
ence of habits, at least not much to be envied. 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 137 

else of candour, integrity, and a teachable 
disposition, is to this day irresistible. But it 
never was felt or confessed in a manner 
more explicit or manly than when Jesus 
was the preacher. When the officers who 
were sent by the council to apprehend our 
Saviour, were asked indignantly. Why have 
ye not brought him? they answered, 
JVever man spake like this man ; they avowed 
their convictions in the face of their masters, 
upon whom they depended, and to whose 
wrath they exposed themselves. They 
went with full purpose of executing their 
commission ; but were captivated, softened, 
and subdued to the obedience of faith by 
what they heard. Great sometimes hath 
been the force of human eloquence, but 
that of our Saviour was divine, and melted 
even those who it is probable had but little 
of the milk of human kindness. They 
might have fled from those who sent them, 
but returned, and, instead of pretending 
they could not find him, or were afraid of 
the multitude, inspired with courage and 
resolution, with honesty and candour, and, 

N 2 



138 THE GOSPEL 

though obnoxious to whatever punishment 
disappointed malice might be incited to in- 
flict, they confess they never heard them or 
any other speak as he did ; his words were 
attended with such power as they could not 
withstand ; and all who receive the truth 
as it is in him, actually feel the divinity and 
efficacy it imparts regulating their affections 
and giving law to their lives. This is that 
witness which a man hath within himself, 
which convinces him, from the feelings of 
his own heart, that the gospel is na cun- 
ningly devised fable ^ that the prospects it 
reveals are real, that the promises it vouch- 
safes are faithful, and that the hope it in- 
spires can by no means be frustrated. The 
warmth, the comfort, and the peace which 
it diffuses through his whole soul, and the 
happy change it effects in his life, strength- 
en his faith against all the cavils or ridicule 
to which he is exposed from sallies of false 
wit or instances of fashionable folly. It is 
an evidence also so palpable and direct, that 
a good man cannot easily be deceived, nor 
a bad man deceive himself. It appeals to 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 139 

ix testimony that is infallible. He is not 
left to conclude altogether from what he 
may think or say in his own behalf, but is 
enabled to decide on what God, who can- 
not be mistaken, and will not lie, hath said 
of that new heart and right spirit, which he 
commands and requires in the inward parts. 
This is that fiew name and the white stone 
which no man knoweth but he that receiv' 
eth. And he will find it sufficient to fortify 
him against all the evils he encounters, and 
to furnish him with the best answer to all 
that has been alleged, or can be alleged, in 
disparagement of the faith that interests him 
in the promises of the gospel, and the hope 
which purifies his heart. 

Do w^e thus see the beauty and excellence 
of our holy religion ? Do we feel its divine 
influences purifying our souls, warming 
our hearts with a supreme love to God and 
a fervent charity to man ? Do we perceive 
ourselves rising to a humble resemblance of 
God's moral perfections, and find the linea- 
ments of the divine image drawn upon our 
souls ? Are our turbulent passions calmed, 



14G THE GOSPEL 

governed by reason, and actually inciting 
us to a cheerful compliance with the will of 
God ? Do we find our guilty fears dispelled 
by the hope of the divine mercy through 
Jesus Christ? Do we really enjoy that peace 
of mind which the world cannot give, and 
the world cannot take away ? Have the 
temptations to sinful pleasures and sensual 
indulgences lost their force ? Do our cor- 
rupt inclinations sensibly abate, and our 
holy dispositions proportionably increase ? 
Are we more and more disengaged from 
the snares of the world, superior to all its 
goods and evils, and changed from an earth- 
ly and sensual to a spiritual and divine na- 
ture ? Whoever is thus firmly persuaded 
in his own mind, hath^ as the scripture ex- 
presseth it, set to his seal that God is true, 
and his experience is such an argument for 
the powder and certainty of religion, as no 
sophistry can baffle, no reasoning invalidate. 
Would you have me, will he say, renounce 
my religion, and abandon the privileges 
conferred by Christianity ? and what am I to 
receive in exchange? Shall I despise that 



OUR ONLY HOPE. 141 

knowledge which enlightens and refines 
my mind, which is pregnant with goodness 
and with joy ? Shall I forego all those divine 
satisfactions which the contemplation of the 
w'isdom and mercy of God in the redemp- 
tion of mankind by Jesus Christ so abun- 
dantly affords ? Shall I suppress that fire 
of devotion, which purifies my heart from 
the dross of corruption, and melts it into 
tenderness and benignity ? Shall I drive 
away that peace of God which surpasseth 
all understanding, and charmeth all that is 
within me into holy composure and joy ? 
Would you advise me to withdraw my trust 
in God, which reconciles me to all the events 
of life as wisely designed to work together 
for my good? Would you tempt me to 
forsake a good conscience, my most inti- 
mate, my most delightful companion, in the 
deepest solitude, in the greatest outward dis- 
tress ? Would you persuade me to barter 
my hope in death, my transporting prospects 
of immortal blessedness, for apprehensions 
of annihilation, which freeze me with hor- 
roT or distract me with despair? Can I 



142 THE GOSPEL 

thus heedlessly banish myself from the para- 
dise of God to wander in the dark and dis- 
mal wilds of scepticism and infidelity ? No. 
Though I may not be able to answer every 
question, silence every cavil, or refute ev<try 
objection, which the eneniies of truth, the 
lovers of pleasure, or the votaries of pertina- 
city and pride may propose, one thing I 
knmv^ that whereas I was blind^ noxv I see. 

This was the observation of the blind 
man in the gospel, whom Jesus restored 
to sight. When asked by the Pharisees how 
he received his sight, he told them Christ 
opened his eyes. And when they desired 
him to give God the praise, Jor^ say they, 
we know this man is a sinner^ that is, a de- 
ceiver; he replied, Whether he be a sinner or 
noy I know not. One thing I know^ that 
whereas I was bhnd^ now I see. You may 
esteem him a deceiver, or Vv^hat you please, 
but in this one thing i most certainly am 
not deceived, that whereas I xvas blind irova 
my birtl'^, noxv I see. 

Thus when we find our understandings 
enlarged and elevated by the glorious and 



©UR ONLY HOPE. 145 

eaptivating objects of an unseen world; 
when we feel our minds renewed, our 
hearts purified, our guilty consciences paci- 
fied, our lusts and passions, our avarice and 
ambition, our ^nvy and revenge, our love of 
the world, and our attachment to carnal en- 
joyments, subdued by the gospel of Christ, 
we are furnished by the best evidence of its 
enei'gy and its worth, and have reason to 
conclude that he was a teacher sent by God; 
that he was indeed the Messiah, the Saviour 
of the world; that his religion is divine, and 
that there is ?io other ?iame under heaven bt/ 
which we can be saved* 



lU 



MERCIFUL REQUISITIONS OF 
THE GOSPEL. 



Man, of all creatures, is least alive to 
his best interest. How frequently and con- 
fidently does one animal claim the protection 
of another from outrage or danger? Every 
open window is an asylum to the dove from 
the talons of the hawk ; and the redbreast, 
with an obhging confidence, takes shelter in 
the bosom of humanity from the incle- 
mency of the sky. But we, as if deaf to the 
kindest suggestions of nature, are, in fact, 
never less solicitous than where most essen- 
tially concerned. 

Why do we not transfer the anxiety we 
feel in trifles to matters of serious and im^ 



OF THE GOSPEL. 145 

mortal consequence? How sacred are the 
prescriptions of his physician to the patient 
who wishes for health ? What will not the 
hungry do for bread? And, on the brink of 
an awful precipice, who, not absolutely 
mad, would despise the voice, or indus- 
triously av^oid the hand, w^hich, in such an 
extremity of danger, should offer assistance 
or relief? 

When but an earthly sovereign speaks, 
what profound attention hangs on every syl- 
lable he utters! Were his words the har- 
bingers of life or death, they could hardl}- 
excite more eagerness and solicitude I 
There is soniething in our ideas of majesty 
so commanding and respectable, that it is 
impossible not to find our hearts deeply af- 
fected, by whatever is explicitly and for- 
mally directed from an authority thus au* 
gust and irresistible. And shall Majesty su- 
preme ! eternal ! and incomprehensible 1 
while urging the awful concerns of our im- 
mortal spirits, be regarded with coldness or 
indiiference ? What is the whole reve- 
lation of his will, but an express declaration 



146 MERCIFUL REqUISITIONS 

of his gracious earnestness and importunity 
for our welfare? And doth it meet from us 
with a reception equal to its value? Are we 
sensible of the distinction it confers, or hap- 
py in the goodness it presses on our accept- 
ance? Ratlier may^not the Almighty lite- 
rally adopt the prophet's complaint, All day 
have I stretched out my hand to u disobedi- 
ent and gainsaying people? 

All nature upbraids us with inattention 
and ingratitude thus unaccountable and 
monstrous. Did ever the earth disclaim 
her connection with the sun, the branch with 
its root, or the stream with its fountain? 
Is the bee fond of the plant which yields it 
honey, the brood of the wing which shelters 
it from injurj^, and the babe of the breast 
which it suckles? And ought not the lost, 
who cannot save themselves, to hear the be- 
nignant accents of salvation, by the interpo- 
sition of mercy, with joyful humility, listen 
to the propitious overtures of Heaven with 
gratitude, and receive the truth of the gos- 
pel with readiness and sincerity? For hea- 
ven and earth are agreed that food is not 



OF THE GOSPEL. 147 

more necessary to the hungry, clothing to 
the naked, or medicine to the sick, than 
these are to us. i 

God sent not his Son into the world to 
condemn the xvorld, but that the world 
through him might be saved. The great and 
ultimate object of a gospel dispensation is 
not only glory to God in the highest, but 
peace and good-will towards men. Such 
indeed is the gracious and salutary purpose 
of all his paternal tenderness and care, who, 
in kindness to his rational but refractory 
offspring, delivers them in this manner from 
the consequences of tlieir own folly. That 
they may not have a distress unrelieved, a 
wrong unredressed, or a want unsupplied, 
all the works of nature, and the whole 
weight of an eternal providence, are direct- 
ed by him to co-operate in their favour. 
Thus the benignity of Heaven is supreme, 
inexhaustible, and unceasing. For, not- 
withstanding the frailties of our natures, and 
the depravity of our lives, our ignorance, 
perverseness, and ingratitude, the Sovereign 
of the universe, instead of harbouring 



148 MERCIFUL REqUISITIONS 

against us the resentment we deserve, is 
actually in Christ reconciling us to himself; 
sent not among us an exterminating angel, 
but the Son of his love; and visits our 
fallen and degraded condition with loving 
kindness and tender mercies. 

Think not then that the God who made 
will not have mercy upon you; that his as- 
pect on any of our concerns is in the least 
degree unfavourable or discouraging ; tluU: 
severity without lenity is the exclusive ob- 
ject of his government ; or that he regards 
our imperfections with sternness, or even 
without pity. This were to slander his 
goodness, and reduce the unalterable maxims 
of his providence to the standard of human 
depravity. But all his attributes and work- 
ings are on the side of mercy. Creation 
originated in the fulness and ardour of this 
divine principle, which pervades and ani- 
mates the whole system of existence. And 
what is Christianity but an everlasting mo- 
nument of that grace which abounds to tlie 
chief of sinners? It was conceived in the 
plenitude of a benevolence which exceeds 



OF THE GOSPEL. 149 

all our wants and all our wishes. It was 
planned and executed by a wisdom which 
passeth knowledge. It is inscribed to the 
honour of redeeming love, and the merits 
of a crucified and triumphant Saviour. It 
is invested with a lustre which brightens 
the habitations of heaven, and beams im- 
mortal day through all the abodes of mor- 
tality. It unveils and exhibits an excel- 
lence, a beauty, a grandeur, a majesty, per- 
fectly, unequivocally, and substantially di- 
vine. 

Such is the genius and tendency of that 
religion which offers pardon to the guilty, 
and confers immortality on dying creatures. 
Conscious imperfection and depravity is a 
sentiment which haunts the best of us like 
a ghost. We cannot go where the secret 
and powerful workings of conscience v/ill 
not seize our apprehensions, and a thousand 
criminal imbecilities, preferences, and omis- 
sions, rise in solemn and awful remembrance 
against us. With death, judgment, and 
eternity staring us in the face, an under- 
standing clouded with ignorance andderang- 

o2 



150 MERCIFUL REQUISITIONS 

ed with appetite and passion, a life tarnish- 
ed and chequered with vice, and a heart la- 
bouring and oppressed with fear, what 
would we not give to be at peace with God 
and our own minds, to be rescued from the 
bitter pangs of remorse, and the teasing in- 
quietudes of uncertainty, and to be pre- 
pared for entering on another world with 
solid tranquillity and confidence ? 

What shall we do to be saved ? or where- 
with shall we come before the Lord ? are 
questions of the most indispensable neces- 
sity and importance, and in the solution of 
which every individual is deeply interested. 
From this great, this final, this impartial, 
and universal trial, there is no exemption. 
The young and the old, the rich and the 
poor, the tyrant and his vassal, are here on 
a level, and must ultimately stand or fall by 
their own personal and independent quali- 
ties. You may trifle with the claims of 
mortals blind and fallible as yourselves, hu- 
man justice may be eluded, the laws of so- 
ciety may not in every case be adequate to 
all the obliquities of guilt, the thief may 



\ 



OF THE GOSPEL. 151 

riot in the plunder of his neighbour, the 
worthless amass fortunes by means of dis- 
honesty, the unjust sei*vant foully betrajr 
the interest, or negligently perform the ser- 
vice o^ his master, the rich ma}' grind the 
faces of the poor, and the poor prowl like 
wolves on the propert} , the reputation, and 
whatever is dear to the rich ; "but for all 
thf se things they must answer at last to the 
Searcher of hearts, and before a tribunal, 
where it is as impossible for guilt to escape, 
as for innocence to suffer. And though 
human life, over the whole earthi, be little 
better than one unbroken system of mutual 
insult and depredation, that God, to ^vhom 
the whole species are every where and 
equally accountable, will not be thus treated, 
for whatever a man sosivethy that and that 
only shall he reap. 

Nor is it possible, by any artifice or expe- 
dient, to avoid or postpone this awful and 
decisive interview. It is the unaherable des- 
tination of every human being. Come be- 
fore the great God we all must, either as 
criminals to receive condemnation, or as 



152 MERCIFUL REqyiSITIONS 

friends to be distinguished by his favour- 
He only is the God with whom we have to 
do, the Sovereign to whom we owe the pro- 
foundest homage, the Benefactor from whom 
we receive every thing richly to enjoy ^ the 
Judge on whose unerring verdict our ever- 
lasting fate depends. We must therefore 
regard him with the deepest reverence, 
with unfeigned gratitude, and with an im- 
portunity in some degree proportionate to the 
value of those spiritual and immortal in^ 
terests which are solely at his disposal, and 
without which nothing in earth or heaven 
can prevent our destruction. 

What solicitude so eminently becomes 
our present critical and precarious situation 
as fallen or as guilty creatures? In what in- 
quiry can we be so well and rationally em- 
ployed as in settling our final acceptance 
with God? The point to be resolved is, 
whether we prefer happiness to misery, or 
life to death. The time allotted us for 
coming to a decision on a point of such in- 
finite moment is the more precious and 
pressing, that it is short and uncertain. 



OF THE GOSPEL. 153 

Wor^ xvhtle it is day^ for the night hasten- 
eth in which no man can xvork^ and give all 
diligence to make your calling and election 
sure. Who does not wish to be in a state 
of friendship with God, to possess the glo- 
rious hopes of sharing his presence and 
communion in another and a better form 
of existence, and to enjoy that peace of 
God, which passeth all understandi?igy as 
certain earnests of those pleasures which 
are at his right handjor evermore? 

But what shall we give in exchange for 
such a privilege? with what sacrifice pur- 
chase a blessing thus inestimable and di- 
vine? Will the God of our fathers, who is 
perfectly acquainted with the inmost senti- 
ments of our hearts, accept of services per- 
formed without principle? or suffer his holy 
altar to be profaned by a carcase without a 
soul ? Does religion exact no more than a 
common attendance at church once a week, 
or a mere foraial discharge of duties in which 
the heart and life have no concern? Can we 
expect to enjoy those blessings reserved in 
heaven for the best, only by avoiding such 



154 MERCIFUL REQUISITIONS 

enormities as mark the worst? Are the 
glorious and unfading rewards of real and 
operative virtue due to those who are satis- 
fied with the shadow instead of the sub- 
stance, who rest in appearances alone, and 
are content to abstain from such violations 
of decency and law only, as might subject 
them to the cognizance of civil justice? 
What claim have they to the honours and 
blessings of an unblemished and meritori- 
ous reputation, who could riot in the gross- 
est immoralities but for the infamy and de- 
testation which still attend them ? Or 
since his wisdom is not to be deceived, is it 
practicable by any means independent of vir- 
tue to secure his favour? Will he regard 
the worshipper in proportion to the cost- 
liness or value of his oblation? Does he 
make our happiness the price or condition 
of his service? or insult the indigence of 
our nature by a prescription which mocks 
our exertions, or a requisition which defies 
our abilities? 

Hard and deplorable were the life of man, 
taxed by a condition thus impracticable and 



OF THE GOSPEL. 155 

severe. Surrounded on all sides with in- 
superable difficulty, existence would not be 
a blessing but a curse. Under the pressure 
of impending, inevitable, and immediate 
danger, and instigated by a thousand sen- 
sibilities, unavoidable from a situation of 
such extreme hazard and anxiety, whither 
could he fly for refuge, to what expedient 
have recourse, where find an asylum from 
the accumulated horrors of futurity, and the 
foreboding perplexities of his own heart ? 

In the midst of this tremendous gloom, 
in which the whole human race are natu- 
rally involved, the Sun of righteousness ap- 
pears. He hath showed thee^ man, what 
is good; that pearl oj* great price, which 
philosophy could never find ; that immor- 
tality so much desired and so much doubted, 
that mystery hid from ages, is thus brought 
to light by the gospel. Blessed he the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, rvho, 
according to his abundant mercy, hath be- 
gotten us again unto a lively hope by the 
resurrection of Christ from the dead* This 
propitious revelation of his will contains an 



156 MERCIFUL REqUISITIONS 

effectual solution of all our doubts, and a 
complete supply of all our necessities. 
The scenes of a life to come are no longer 
wrapped up in awful and impenetrable ob- 
scurity. We know that our Redeemer 
liveth^ that our Maker is propitious, and 
that infallible means of delivering our souls 
from death are established. He whom we 
had offended, and to whom we are account- 
able, hath settled and prescribed the terms 
on which he is willing to be reconciled. 
Thus the proposition on the part of Heaven 
is made and tendered, and nothing wanting 
but our acceptance to secure a7i inheritance 
which is unfading^ undejiled^ and passeth not 
away. And that our unbelief and obstinacy 
may remain for ever inexcusable, he even 
swears by himself^ because he can swear by 
no greater, that he has no pleasure in our 
death. 

What then doth religion require of us but 
to act that part, and fulfil those obligations 
most consonant to truth and nature? We 
can never so effectually please God, or obey 
his will, as in doing good to ourselves and 



or THE GOSPEL. 157 

one another. The more elFectually to 
secure these salutary and desirable objects, 
he makes the means of. our happiness the 
condition of his favour; nor can we ever be 
so sure of his approbation, as when consci- 
ous of having acted well. There is indeed 
no worship, no penitence, no religion, so 
grateful on earth, or so acceptable in heaven, 
as a conduct founded in strict integrity and 
honour. God and man are united in stamp- 
ing it with peculiar dignity and distinction. 
It is this which gives a right to the tree of 
lifcy which entitles the human to a partici- 
pation of the divine nature, which wrests 
the sting from death, and divests the grave 
of horror, which sweetens the bitterest 
dregs of life, and which ultimately adminis- 
ters an easy and joyful access to an immor- 
tal kingdom of the purest and most sub- 
stantial rectitude. 



158 



DIVINE PERFECTION THE BEST 
STANDARD OF MORALS. 



All the phenomena of nature give 
conspicuous notices of an all- wise and al- 
mighty Creator; our relation to him as Ma- 
ker and Governor of all things ; our depen- 
dence upon him for all our enjoyments ; the 
homage and service we owe him ; what we 
have to dread from his displeasure, and the 
confidence we should repose in his good- 
ness. Surely a due sense of such a connec- 
tion with such a Being, rightly adjusted 
and regularly pursued, might well be ex- 
pected to produce in the minds of men real 
and substantial tranquillity ; for it may well 
be laid down as an incontrovertible maxim, 
.that whatever is not the source of all happi- 



DIVINE PERFECTION, 8cC. 159 

ness cannot be true religion. No, The 
God and Father of the universe, who takes 
the tenderest interest and concern in the 
well-being of all his numerous family, can 
be the author of no institution distinguished 
by any other tendencies than those of hu- 
manity and benevolence, of benignity and 
grace. 

But if we look into the world, we shall 
perceive the face of things hath a quite diffe- 
rent appearance. Religion-is fearful, suspi- ' 
cious, full of doubts and misgivings of 
heart ; never satisfied with itself; continually 
seeking, but seldom finding where to fix in 
rest and quietness. It happens therefore 
that some, not rightly considering the 
causes of things, misconceive religion itself, 
and think it better to lay aside all pretences 
to it, than for ever to toss and fluctuate in 
that ocean of darkness with which it is sur- 
rounded. Thus superstition, by rendering 
many miserable in pursuit of religion, 
makes others, to avoid being lost in that 
gulf, precipitate themselves into another of 
infidelity and irreligion, which is much 



160 DIVINE PERFECTION THE 

deeper. In these two extremes true reli- 
gion is lost, and, together with it, that 
peace, that comfort, and ease of mind which 
belongs to it alone. 

For let us view the supreme Being from 
which of these extremes we please, his ap- 
pearance must be dreadful : we shall see 
him arrayed in all the terrors of majesty 
and power, but every ray that flows from 
his mercy and kindness will be quite in- 
tercepted from our eyes. 

The unbeliever sees nothing in God but 
the Judge and the Avenger ; and hastens 
back to his infidelity to shelter him from 
that wrath and justice which, even in ima- 
gination, are insupportable. 

Superstition is so perpetually enveloped in 
the gloomy clouds of black apprehensions 
and suspicions, that it cannot discern the 
beauties of the great Creator. Every 
frightful spectre that stalks in its own ti- 
morous fancy is mistaken for the Deity, and 
becomes the God of its idolatry : as some 
savages are said to worship demons, not for 
love but fear. 



BEST STANDARD OF MORALS. 161 

Whence proceed these sad calamities? 
What hath robbed mankind of the comfort, 
the pleasures, and the rewards of rehgion t 
And how hath this living spring, this foun- 
tain of delight, been corrupted, a id all its 
waters turned into gall and bitterness. 
These misfortunes have arisen from mis- 
taken notions, and false conclusions; chiefly 
from erroneous and unworthy ideas of that 
God whom to know is life eternal. Whe- 
ther we consider the instruction of the en- 
couragement necessary for our progress in 
holiness, we shall find having true and wor- 
thy notions of God and his perfections the 
best means by which we can come to the 
knowledge of our duty, and the best motive 
to practise it when known. 

The duties of religion are the rule by" 
which men are to act such a part as may 
please God. It is impossible that any thing 
should please God but what is agreeable to 
his nature and perfections ; and unless we 
know what these are, we can never know 
what duties will please him. God himself 
hath, from^ all eternity, existed infinitely hap- 

p. 2:. 



162 DIVINE PERFECTION THE 

py. His happiness was complete before 
the universe was framed ; before angels or 
men were called forth into being, in order 
to adore, to illustrate, and to partake of it. 
His own eternal attributes are an inexhaus- 
tible spring of all satisfaction. Since all the 
possible reasons for infinite pleasure are 
contained in the nature of the Deity, it fol- 
lows that nothing can be in the least pleas- 
ing to him, any farther than it is in some degree 
a faint similitude of his nature, the imper- 
fect semblance of his perfections. For if 
any of our services were distinct from these, 
and yet sufficient to please him, he could 
not be said to have in himself all the grounds 
of an infinite satisfaction, which it is an ab- 
surdity to suppose. 

So that the nature and perfections of the 
Almighty are a certain standard, both of 
what hath been from all eternity, and of 
what to all eternity shall be well pleasing to 
him. 

The knowledge of God is then the pro- 
per instruction for pleasing him : for how is 
it possible for us to be ignorant of what will 



BEST STANDARD OF MORALS. 163 

please him when we know what has pleased 
him for ever? It is true, God has given us 
an express revelation of his will, and marked 
out the rule of our conduct distinctly ; yet it 
is still necessary for us to recur to the study 
of his divine nature, to understand his will 
after it is revealed : without a right apprehen- 
sion of which, we shall neither know our du- 
ty nor what will please God, although he 
hath expressly shown us both. 

God, for instance, hath commanded us to 
be just and righteous, to be faithful and 
true. The reason of the command is obvi- 
ous. These are divine perfections. But 
unless we know what the justice and right- 
eousness, the faith and the truth of God are, 
how is it possible for us to imitate him in 
these, notwithstanding he hath enjoined 
them? Since the duties of religion are de- 
rived from the perfections of God, how can 
we understand the one unless we have a 
clear conception of the other? 

We are commanded in the scriptures to 
be merciful and perfect^ as our Father who 
is in heaven : but if we know not what 



164 DIVINE PERFECTION THE 

mercy and perfection in God are, how shall 
we ever in these respects be like him ? So 
that the nature of the Supreme Being is 
our only infalible guide by which to under- 
stand the nature of the moral duties enjoined 
in the revelation of his will. Unless we 
have recourse to this, we certainly err in 
our interpretation of them. And this is 
not only requisite to understand our duty 
when revealed, but is essentially necessary 
also antecedent to all revelation. It is such a 
knowledge as without it we could not have 
sufficient grounds to understand the scrip- 
tures, however otherwise explicitly deli- 
vered ; and in that case revelation itself 
were useless and nugatory* For unless we 
are first persuaded of the essential goodness 
of God, and his continual provident care, 
how can we be assured that he would make 
anv such revelation ? How can we be cer- 
tain that what is revealed is indeed his will, 
but by first knowing him to be the God of 
truth, who cannot deceive? Or, suppos- 
ing that the scriptures when first revealed 
were his will, yet how can we be satisfied 



BEST STANDARD OF MORALS, 165 

that they still continue to be so, but by 
knowing fhat he is unchangeable in his na. 
ture, that in him there is no variableness nor 
shadow of turning. Or what ih^ail those 
laws he hath enjoined, unless we know him 
for the supreme Lord, w^ho hath absolute 
right and unquestionable authority to enact 
them? Or what would all his promises and 
threatenings avail, unless we believe him 
just and faithful, that he will execute as he 
hath threatened, and reward as he hath pro- 
mised? 

The knowledge of God is the best means 
of attaining the knowledge of our duty : and 
it is, moreover, the most powerful motive to 
excite us to practise it when known. The 
only means, that can be afforded us to do 
our duty, is to have such arguments laid be- 
fore us, as are apt to move and raise the pas- 
sions, to influence our wills, and excite us to 
action. 

For it is the property of a moral agent to 
be actuated by argument and persuasion ; 
and wherever there is virtue in any action, 
it must be under the direction of a free 



166 DIVINE PERFECTION THE 

choice, performed by the influence of reason 
and moral argument. Persuasive motives 
must be proposed, and the compliance with 
or rejection of them left to the judgment 
of the agent. For whatever abounds in 
such arguments as are most able to move 
our passion, is fittest to excite our religious 
obedience. There is nothing conceivable 
so absolutely proper for this, as the con- 
templation of the nature and perfections of 
God. For every attribute of the Deity is 
both a reason or foundation for some duty, 
and a motive to practise it. Nor can the 
difference of men's particular dispositions 
be so great, but there will be something 
in the divine perfections sufficiently calcu- 
lated to move them and modulate their 
effects. So that whether a man's natural 
constitution render him capable of being 
influenced chiefly by hope, by fear, by 
shame, by love, or any other prevailing pas- 
sion which can rule the human breast, he 
may always find some correspondent attri- 
bute in God, his omnipotency, his benig- 
nity, his justice, his mercy, or whatever is 



BEST STANDARD OF MORALS. 167 

most naturally apt to excite such sentiments 
in him. And these attributes being all in- 
finite, what force can be conceived stronger 
or more likely to make us what we should 
be ? What is it but an almighty reason 
applied to that passion which is in use to 
eontroul and determine the whole man ? 

On account of the great force and efficacy 
contained in such motives, it certainly is 
that they are so often made use of in scrip- 
rture. How frequently do we there find 
mention made of the power, the mercy, and 
the justice of the Almighty ; of his being 
able to save and destroy to the uttermost ; 
of his being full of compassion, tenderly 
merciful, and long-suffering ; of his hatred 
of sin, and his resolution of not clearing the 
guilty ! And for what reason are these at- 
tributes so often enumerated, but to excite 
mankind by them to obedience ? 

These perfections of God are not only the 
most frequent, but, indeed, the only motive 
to holiness which the scriptures contain. For 
though we are there dissuaded from sin by 
threatenings of temporal and eternal destruc- 



168 DIVINE PERFECTION THE 

tion, and invited to virtue by promises of 
present and future felicity, yet it is plain that 
neither of these, nor any promises or threats 
whatever, can influence us, but only in so 
far as we believe him to be sincere and true 
who hath promised and threatened. If we 
are moved to the practice of our duty upon 
the account of temporal goods and evils, it 
must be because we are fully persuaded of a 
just and good Providence, that will make all 
things work together for good to them that 
fear God, and shower down distress and an- 
guish on the heads of the worthless and un- 
believing. 

If the felicities of heaven, or the torments 
of the infernal regions, have any influence 
on the soul of man, it must be, because he 
believes the Almighty to be so faithful and 
just that he will infallibly reward where he 
hath promised, and punish Vvhere he hath 
threatened to do, both the one and the other. 

So that the attributes of God are the foun- 
dation of all religious motives and persua- 
sions. It is from the notion of a God alone 
that men come to have any sense of religion ; 



BEST STANDARD OP MORALS. 169 

and it is by the same principle only that 
they can determine \Vhether any part of their 
religion be true or false. 

When we consider God as the Lord and 
Governor of the universe, we soon perceive 
ourselves to be in subjection, and that we 
stand obliged both by interest and duty to 
pay him the most unreserved and universal 
obedience. But what is that obedience? 
and in what actions does it consist? For 
satisfaction in these particulars we must re- 
cur to our ideas of God. If these be sound 
and true, our obedience will be just and 
reasonable. If we conceive him to be holy, 
pure, and just, we shall necessarily judge, 
that no service can please him but what is 
agreeable to holiness, purity, and justice. If 
we conceive him to be a being good and 
merciful, a common Fad:ier to all, whose 
love is without partiality, we must upon 
this view conclude, that religion binds us to 
mutual love and universal benevolence. 

If we take from the notion of God any of 
the jnoral p jill ctions that belong to it, the 
alteration will also affect religion, which 



170 DIVINE PERFECTION, &C. 

will degenerate in the same proportion as 
the idea of the Eternal is corrupted. 

There is no more certahi way of preserv- 
ing ourselves stedfast in the purity of the 
gospel, than by observing this rule. En- 
thusiasm, or destructive zeal, could never 
have arisen among christians if men had 
compared their practices with the natural 
sense they have of the Deity. They should 
have seen, that to defend even religion ^by 
cruelty and bloodshed, must be hateful in 
the sight of God. Religion could never 
have degenerated into such folly and super- 
stition as in some places it hath done, had 
the true notion of God been preserved, and 
every religious action been examined by it. 
Nor could infidelity have been produced by 
these superstitions, if men had formed their 
notions of religion from the nature of God, 
and not from the follies of their fellow- crea- 
tures. 

This knowledge of the Most High let us 
always cultivate and improve, as the safest 
instructor in all doubts, the true principle 
of religious wisdom, and the surest guide to 
life eternal. 



171 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 



There cannot be a more fatal 
symptom of depravity and corruption, in 
any society of christians, than insensibihty 
to the impressions, or want of taste for the 
pecuhar doctrines, of the gospel. Perhaps 
no period in our history can be specified in 
which mankind have appeared more know- 
ing or less pious ; better informed or more 
degenerate ; with faculties so well cultivated, 
or dispositions so little affected by the hopes 
or fears of a world to come. 

In the preceding age, much address was 
required to keep infidelity in countenance. 
All the combined energies of wit, and elo- 
quence, and learning, could not protect it 
from the odium and honest indignation of 



172 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

our forefathers, who had still common sense 
enough to perceive and detest its pernicious 
consequences. They were, at least, not 
scared out of all their best hopes and strong- 
est convictions by the '' world's dread 
laugh." The principles of the gospel 
were so fastened in their natures and twisted 
about their hearts, that some reasoning or 
sophistry was then necessary to^ discredit 
their authority and abate their influence. 
The scales are now, however, so effectually 
turned, that the friends and advocates of our 
holy religion seem no longer bold in her 
cause, but eye one another as soldiers who 
desert their colours in the day of battle, and 
are marked, and even scouted, in some 
companies, like associates in fraud, whose 
schemes are blown upon, and. whose cha- 
racters are detected and exposed ! 

Thus, to do public homage to the God 
of our fathers, to worship him avowedly, 
who made the heavens and the earth, and 
to love and honour his Son, who redeemed 
our souls from destruction^ is even thought, 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 173 

in this refined and fastidious age, to stand 
in need of some apology. 

But we protest, in the name of Christi- 
anity, against this dastardly conspiracy of 
her enemies, whose passions are interested 
in decrying her beauty and excellence, and 
appeal to those who know who she is, and 
what she can do, who have actually made 
tlie experiment, and who, by substantiating 
the terms she prescribes, are now in full pos- 
session of all her blessings and enjoyments. 

Would you see her as she practically ex- 
ists, as she is delineated in action, in her 
probation and perfection, as tried and trium- 
phant; lift up your eyes to the habitations 
of holiness, where her divine empire is for 
ever established and realized. Do ye ask 
who those splendid multitudes of all kin- 
dreds, and nations, and languages, are, who 
fill the celestial mansions, and are clothed in 
white robes, with crowns of glory on their 
heads, palms of victory in their hands , and 
the high praises of God in their mouths? 

These are they which came out of great 
tribulation^ and have washed their robes, and 

. a2 



174 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

made them white in the blood of the Lamb* 
Therefore are they before the throne of God* 
It will not be easy to find, in the whole 
book of God, a more finished picture of 
christians than in these words. It tells us 
whence they come, who they are, what they 
do, and whither they go. Though not ex- 
empted from the troubles of life, they are 
not overwhelmed by them, as the fearful 
and unbelieving sometimes are, but have the 
peculiar privilege of getting out of them. 
They not only wash their robes^ but make 
them white, keep themselves unspotted from 
the world, and also abound in every good 
word and work* The natural and saving ef- 
fect of divine truth on their hearts, is, that 
they are purified, sanctified, and cleansed in 
the blood of the Lamb* From a patient 
continuance in well doing, they are kept by 
the omnipotent power of God through faith 
unto salvation, and finally persevere in the 
paths of holiness. Therefore are they be- 
fore the throne of God. The most consum- 
mate safety and felicity, all that divine benig- 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 175 

nity can give and their immortal capacities 
receive, is the necessary termination of 
their principles, their duties, their trials, and 
their triumphs. 



PROBATION. 

These are they which came out of great 
tribulation. The event is miraculous, and 
mentioned in the language of astonishment. 
It is contrary to the common course of 
things, and all those conclusions we gene- 
rally draw from experience. For the won- 
der is not that there be few^ but that there 
be any, who are saved. Who can be sensi- 
ble of their situation, compassed about with 
temptations, the lust of the eye^ the lust of 
the flesh, and the pride of life, the strength 
of corruption within, the blandishments of 
sense without, the bias of their natures, the 
weakness of their faith, and the perfidy of 
their hearts, and not be satisfied that strait 
is the gate and narroxv is the way which 
leadeth to life, and few there be who find it. 



176 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

What an awful disappointment awaits the 
present profession of religion in our times ! 
A little external attention is, in our opinion, 
all the gospel requires. We think the 
work done, our salvation effected, heaven 
obtained, and all our danger at an end, by 
only deigning once a week to associate with 
the disciples of Jesus, as if that could renew 
our natures, reduce our unruly appetites, 
rectify our vicious passions, sanctify our 
tempers, sprinkle our consciences from 
dead works, and render our lives both holy 
and happy. Who does not commiserate 
and bewail the strange infatuation of such 
as presume that all these gracious effects 
are produced by the stated repetition of 
words operating on their minds like a 
charm 1 As w^ell may we expect the blind 
to reach their destination without a guide, or 
a ship regularly to perform her voyage by 
swimming down the stream at random, and 
yielding implicitly to wind and tide, as that 
we can imbibe the spirit, receive the com- 
forts, or realize the promises of the gospel, 
by living the same carnal and loose lives, 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 177 

committing the same fashionable vices, 
adopting the same base maxims, and exhi- 
biting the same licentious mamiers, as others 
about us. 

How differently did the primitive chris- 
tians, the holy martyrs in all ages, and even 
our own forefathers, who are now with 
hosts of holy men inheriting the promises^ 
act from the nominal christians of these 
days ! Do but compare our circumstances, 
our conflicts, and our sufferings, with theirs. 
What can give pain to the body, or anguish 
to the soul, wound the whole system of hu- 
man sensibility, irritate the passions, imbit- 
ter the spirits, or wring the heart, which 
they did not endure, in which their faith 
was not put to the test, their hope enliven- 
ed, and their patience victorious? Have 
we any trials to sustain, complaints to utter, 
or calamities to bewail, equal or similar to 
such as distinguished them ? No. They 
were literally carried to heaven in chariots of 
.fire ! Their lives were embroiled and their 
deaths premature. They resisted the fier- 
cest storms of persecution, resolutely adher- 



178 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

ed to the testimony of Jesus, in the blackest 
times, and even gloried in his cross while 
their hearts were fainting, and their flesh 
2iCtu3lly failing and consuming in the midst 
of flames. 

Happy they for whom the world had no 
charm which could detach them from their 
best interest, who could espouse a cause 
which promised nothing but what is most 
alarming and repugnant to flesh and blood, 
who preferred a master chiefly distinguished 
by sufferings and loaded with ignominy ! 
Ye humble followers of the humblest reli- 
-gion that ever saluted the regards of mor- 
tals, what could thus fascinate and charm in 
that which was deemed in general so vision- 
ary and unpopular ? What could you dis- 
cern in this man of sorrows powerful enough 
to make you follow him, at the certain loss 
of fortune and friends, highly aggravated by 
the dreadful and immediate prospeil of ex- 
ile, famine, the stake, or the gibbet? 

This world of ours, in which the King of 
martyrs himself had not where to lay his head, 
disclaimed these holy men, but their names 



CHRISTIANITY HEALIZED. 179 

are xuritt en in -heaven. Like him, though 
despised and rejected of men, their lives and 
death were equally precious in the sight of 
God, The princes and rulers of the earth 
combined against their quiet as they had done 
against his, but angels unseen watched them 
sleeping and waking, ministered to all their 
wants and infirmities, gave them ease and 
comfort in proportion to the fierceness of the 
violence that pursued them, and often made 
them happiest when seemingly most in mi- 
sery ! Their lives were spent in corners, 
or caves, or dungeons, and their deaths im- 
bittered by all the cruelty wit could devise, 
or malice inflict. But their countenances' 
continued serene and their minds collected 
amidst the sharpest storms of human fury ; 
the agonies of their last convulsive pangs 
were absorbed in the joys of the Holy 
Ghost ; and, notwithstanding the tempo- 
rary clouds of derision and obloquy which 
darkened their reputation and shrouded 
their dying moments, a gleam of departing 
glory occasionally marked their illustrious 
•exit, often confounded, and sometimes con- 



180 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

verted, their fellest enemies. Theirs were 
literally '' the stings and arrows of outrage- 
ous fortune;" but theirs also were the un- 
searchable riches of righteousness. The 
horrors which then environed them were 
speedily dispelled by the hope which beam- 
ed refulgent on their souls. Their feeling 
must have been human, but their triumph 
was divine. In these shocks their bodies 
only could sufter, but their souls were in- 
stantlv blessed, and their memories will be 
had in everlasting remeinbrance. 

These were tribulations, great tribulations, 
but armies of holy martyrs and confessors, 
by the grace of God, by the influence of his 
Spirit, by the operations of faith, by the ex- 
ercise of patience, and by all the consola- 
tions of the gospel, came out of them all. 
Now their severest adversities are forgotten, 
their hearts at rest, their spirits made perfect 
in blessedness, and all their virtues, graces, 
and best endowments, rendered for ever il- 
lustrious and triumphant ! 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 181 



PURITY. 

r 

— And have washed their robes* In the 
language of inspiration our iniquities are 
said to ho^Jbrgiven, as if they were offences, 
debts, or injuries done to God ; healed or 
cured, as if they were wounds or diseases 
of a most inveterate and malignant tenden- 
cy ; cancelled or blotted out, as if they were 
evidences on record against us ; covered or 
put out of sight, as if deformities of which 
we ought to be ashamed ; and washed, as 
if they were spots, tliat the unavoidable de- 
filements of the body may put us in mind 
of those frailties and imperfections which 
tarnish and deface the image of God in our 
souls. 

The phrase washed illustrates one of the 
most important duties in life, by a circum- 
stance common to all, and w^hich the mean- 
est capacity must comprehend. It denotes 
our escaping the corruption that is in the 
world through lust, our abstaining from 



182 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

every appearance of evil, our not being con- 
formed to the world, or, in language of still 
greater energy, our being crucified to the 
world, and having the world crucified unto 
us. 

All this luminous assemblage of pictu- 
resque expression is calculated to imprint 
on our imaginations and heart this im- 
portant doctrine, that nothing but the beau- 
ties of holiness .can adorn an immortal 
spirit; or that we can never appear with 
such advantage in the eyes of all who have 
the faculty of true discernment, in our own 
eyes, or in the eyes of Him with whom we 
have to do^ and to whom all things are open 
and naked, as in the garb of goodness. 
And the clearer, the purer, and the whiter 
this heavenly garb is, the more comely and 
acceptable we shall be. 

To interpret the words of the holy apostle 
by the practice of christians among us, 
would be, in some measure, to divest them 
of meaning. Religion, indeed, requires no 
more than a conduct which right reason must 
approve, and that we adopt it as a govern- 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 183 

ing principle to reject unexceptionably all 
tlie artifices which arise from the sinister 
and low passions, as incompatible with 
duty, hostile to our best qualities and their 
highest exercise, derogatory to character, 
and incompetent to happiness. We should 
live in the world as not abusing nor abused 
by it, above the sordid craft of little minds, 
equally independent of prosperous and ad- 
verse fortune; avoiding all worthless un- 
principled associations, where time is often 
the victim of sottish indolence, or some- 
thing worse; reason of intemperance, man- 
liness of effeminacy, and where sobriety, and 
decency, and virtue, are but too frequently 
lost in such paroxysms as are disgraceful to 
our nature, dishonourable to the christian 
name, and mark millions who assume it, 
not only as low and contemptible, but like- 
wise as base and treacherous. 

Christianity is not calculated to make bi- 
gots or hypocrites, to drive her disciples 
into holes or corners, or to render man the 
enemy of man. Her aspect beams with 
kindness to every human creature, ail hen 



184 CHRlSTIANIi"y REALIZED. 

tendencies are benevolent and social, and 
even that self-denial which she imposes as 
a fundamental l^w, and which involves so 
many hard duties, is only adopted as the in- 
dispensable means of her accomplishing the 
grand and gracious object for which she 
was designed. Her promises, however, are 
all conditionary, and we cannot expect her 
blessings, while we live in express contra- 
diction to her terms. 

This surely is not an age in which reli- 
gious austerity is likely to do much mis- 
chief, to make men hermits, or to become 
fashionable. The danger seems to be con- 
fined for the most part to the opposite ex- 
treme, as the only semblance of religion 
left in this country is evidently reduced to 
a spirit of mean compliance with the hu- 
mour, the maxims, and the practices of 
others. But is that man honest, who takes 
every advantage of his neighbour^ in all the 
bargains he makes, which does not expose 
him to legal pains and penalties? And 
can there be any sincerity in his profes- 
sions of the gospel, in the name he bears. 



^ CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 185 

and the VOWS he takes, however frequcntj 
solemn, or public, whose hfe is without 
principle, whose manners are without purity^, 
whose habits of acting and thinking are all 
formed, suggested, and regulated, not by 
the precepts of Christianity, whose sanctions 
he seldom feels, nor by the influence of 
reason, in which it is so much the fashion 
to confide, nor even by the calls of inter- 
est, which so few can withstand, least of all 
by the clamours of conscience, which he 
has the sophistry to suppi'ess, or the hardi- 
hood to spurn, but by the profligacy of an 
undisciplined heart, or the depravity of an 
unprincipled age ? 

There is no disease so fatal or infectious 
as that of evil example. Of Homer it has 
been said, with much justice, that instead 
of forming his men like gods, he forms his 
gods like men ; for, in fact, he ascribes to 
them indiscriminately every foul passion 
which can debase the mind or contaminate 
life. And does not everv immoral christian 
tlie same ill office by our holy religion? 
In hiin Heaven is no longer a pattern to^ 

R 2- 



186 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

earth, but earth to Heaven. He keeps not 
his garments clean, nor has washed his robes. 
His life gives the lie to his creed : for the 
spirit of the gospel, though liberal, is pure, 
manly, and affable, not loose or indecent ; 
kind and courteous, not licentious or cor- 
rupt ; proscribes incivility, but admits of 
no connivance with guilt ; expands and 
sanctions the best sensibilities of the heart, 
but enjoins, with inflexible severity, the 
greatest distance from all vicious, abandon- 
ed, and irregular company. 



BEAUTY OF HOLTNESS. 

— A?td made them white. How beauti- 
fully striking and significant is this meta- 
phor! The holy angels, those heralds of 
grace, in all their embassies of mercy to 
mortals, have uniformly become visible in 
white; the souls of just men made perfect 
are represented in a state of glory as clothed 
in white robes; the followers of the Lamb, 
or members of the church triumphant, arc 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 187 

said to walk with him in white ^ for they arc 
worthy; anchthe seat of final judgment is 
exhibited in prophetic vision as a great 
white throne. 

The word, as applied to the manners of 
christians in a condition of trial and disci- 
pline, imports the sanctifying influences of 
divine truth, our conformity to the will of 
God, and our affinity to another world, even 
while pilgrims and sti'angers on the earth. 
It is not enough to avoid evil, we must also 
do good. Christ would never want disci- 
ples were it not still more necessary to fol- 
low his example than bear his name. But 
to come where he is, we must be what he 
was. We all wish to be like him in his 
glory, to reign with him, and to be as he is, 
at the Father's right hand. But in the high 
priest's hall, in the garden, and on the 
cross, we but too generally leave him as the 
disciples did of old, to answer for himself, 
and himself bear all the blame. His gra- 
ces, his abilities, his celebrity, and his tri- 
umphs, we are eager to share, we are daz- 
zled by the splendour of his exaltation, and 



188 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

assimilate ourselves as much as possible to 
the popular and brilliant traits of his charac- 
ter, but care not to imitate him in humility, 
in want, in obloquy, and in agony. 

This, however, is the copy we are chief- 
ly enjoined to transcribe. These are the 
postures, the attitudes, and the colours, 
which, in cultivating his likeness, we must 
assume. Our robes^ to be made whiter 
must be drenched in the waters of aiEic- 
tion, tossed on the angry billows of adver- 
sity, and rendered pure as the driven snow 
by the fiercest winds of heaven. Those 
only which came out of great tribulation are 
thus bathed, thus cleansed, and thus beau- 
tified. 

How comely and complete do the vir- 
tues of most professing christians appear, 
when viewed only in a negative light ! And 
where is the man who is not proud of such 
a catalogue? His character is branded by 
no gross crimes. He is not fairer in his 
own eyes than in those of the world. No 
flagrant violation of either piety or peace, 
marks any part of his conduct. He robs 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 189 

not, neither does he steal. His tongue is 
not blackened with blasphemy, his conversa- 
tion debased with obscenity, nor his life 
contaminated by uncleanness. He seldom 
absents himself from church, never avow- 
edly breaks the sabbath, and rarely omits 
the performance of one religious rite. He 
may also pay his debts, procure respect 
from civility, and be notorious for the ne- 
glect of no relative obligation. 

This may be thought much, but all of it 
does not come up to the requisitions, or re- 
alize the genius of religion. It may wash 
your robes from the taint of external pollu- 
tion, but cannot make them white, or de- 
tach you from the more inveterate defile- 
ment of inherent depravity. It may recom- 
mend you to the approbation of men, but 
cannot render you acceptable to God. It 
may gild the outside with all the virtues and 
ornaments of decency and decorum, but can 
neither v/arm your hearts, nor decorate 
your lives with the beauties of holiness. 

These things, however, ought you un- 
doubtedly to do; but other duties, of still 



190 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED^ 

greater consequence, must not be left un- 
done. What diligence, what perseverance, 
what zeal, are all indispensable in fulfilling 
the obligations you are under, and the vows 
you have made. The precepts and injunc- 
tions of the gospel are not more numerous 
than positive and indispensable. But many 
there are who would have all its blessings^ 
and practise none of its duties, who make 
such a selection as suits their own crafty and 
carnal inclinations, who compromise the busi- 
ness between God and their souls by rigidly 
adopting all that appears harsh or austere in 
the exterior of Christianity for a licence to 
indulge their guilty passions, and never in 
all their dealings with others to be troubled 
by the teasing and officious interference of 
principle or conscience. 

These insidious friends are the worst 
enemies of the gospel, who, like Judas of 
old, would be deemed disciples of Jesus, 
and, on every opportunity, betray their 
master with a kiss. They study heaven, 
but not the way to obtain it ; faith, but not 
good works; repentance, not new obedi= 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 191 

ence ; adoption into the family of God, 
not the filial temper of his children ; for- 
giveness of their own trespasses, not of 
theirs who trespass against them ; justifica- 
tion before God, not righteousness with 
men ; predestination, not submission to the 
will of God ; sanctity, not sincerity ; a good 
name, not a good life ; regeneration, or, as 
it is called in the technical cant of fanati- 
cism, the new birth, not renovation, a new- 
heart, or a new nature ; godliness, not be- 
nevolence ; piety, not virtue ; devotion, not 
holiness ; assurance, not humility ; glory, 
not grace ; or grace, not duty. They 
make up in appearance what they want in 
truth, and supply their moral deficiencies by 
the mummeries of superfluous sanctimony. 
Their hypocrisy is often brought to such an 
exquisite degree of refinement, that none 
can be more abusive than they are against the 
worst habits and vices to which thev are ad- 
dieted. It is thus they rail incessantly at the 
name of dishonesty, of falsehood, and of hy- 
pocrisy, and for no reason in the world, but 
that the original may escape, and the effigy 



192 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

or copy only suffer or be lashed, or that they 
may aggravate the general obloquy of what 
they would monopolize for their own use. 
How different from this motley and hollow 
character the Israelite indeed^ in whom there 
is no guile ! There is something in genuine 
sincerity so chaste and sweet, so pure and 
heavenly, so like that state of innocence in 
which man was made ; so very unlike that 
state of guilt and depravity to which he is 
sunk, that the most high God cannot but 
regard the character in whom it constitutes 
the supreme governing principle with 
peculiar and distinguished esteem. For a 
Being possessed of all possible perfection 
must delight in whoever among his intelli- 
gent offspring approximates nearest his own 
divine likeness ; and all who are thus highly 
privileged must be proportionably happy. 
No lustre is so beauteous, so sublime, so 
captivating in the eyes of God or man, as 
that of a good life. It charms all but such 
as have no heart, and confounds whom it 
does not charm. It is the earnest of immor- 
tality, shining and softened through a fami- 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 193 

liar medium. It is human conduct sweet- 
ened and exalted by the smiles, the graces, 
and the anticipations of Heaven. It is the 
image of the invisible God made obvious 
and imitable by means of a mortal form. 
And who can behold the virtues of meek- 
ness, humility, candour, benevolence, and 
magnanimity, those lovely and substantial 
emanations of true worth, and not be in 
love Vi^ith the hearts they w^arm, the bosoms 
they inhabit, the manners they adorn? It 
is thine, O thou fairer than the children of 
men, to set us an easy, pleasing, and com- 
manding example of whatever is most amia- 
ble and useful, and which it is most our du- 
ty, our interest, and our honour, to practise. 



IMMOLATIONS. 

— In the blood of the Lamb, The time 

when the divine oracles were written, the 

state of society, and the peculiar climate 

where they were originally published, with 

.the very interesting matters to which every 



194 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED- 

part of them ultimately bear, account in 
some degree for the frequent use of this 
bold and affecting metaphor. Few civil or 
religious transactions are there recorded or 
described not more or less stained, authen- 
ticated, or rendered memorable by blood. 
In this, like all other histories, the Jewish is 
little better than a series of massacres ; and 
the rites of their worship partook of the 
same .barbarism which tainted their man- 
ners, and the manners of most nations in 
that early period of society. 

It was probably in compliance with this 
fierce and sanguinary feature in the human 
character, that sacrifices were originally in- 
stituted and consecrated as grateful to God 
and satisfactory to men. Creatures, who 
had no just conception of their Maker, na- 
turally thought he might be appeased by 
whatever soothed and terminated their own 
angry and vengeful passions. Conscience, 
always lacerated and blistered by guilt, had 
constant recourse for atonetnent to blood. 
And the maxim is evidently sanctioned by 
human experience, that without shedding of 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 195 

blood there is no remission ofsi?is. In all na- 
tions, in all ages, and by almost all uncivi- 
lized men, shoals of innocent victims have 
bled upon the altar for the crimes of their 
murderers. 

This savage custom became by degrees 
so general, so prevalent, and so capable of a 
moral and religious direction, that it was ap- 
propriated and consecrated as part of the di- 
vine institutes, with which the ancient peo- 
ple of God were so eminently privileged. 
Whatever is most frequently in view, har- 
rows up our feelings most, or is most im- 
pressive on our habits of thinking, must in- 
evitably tincture our language. This ac- 
counts for the singular phraseology of scrip, 
ture, which abounds with allusions to the 
slaughter of animals, ablutions, purgations, 
and all the bloody and pompous apparatus 
of a worship altogether mysterious and sym- 
bolical. 

Do but observe what an emphasis the 
scriptures every where put on our moral 
renovation. All mankind are declared to 
be a^ an unclean things universally vile and 



196 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

corrupted. To rid them of this deplorable 
turpitude, infinite goodness, in all its mag- 
nitude and efficacy, is brought into action. 
A scheme, which never could have entered 
into the hearts of men or angels, is devised 
and executed, as deep as the mahgnity of 
sin, as extensive as the law of God, and 
still more precious than immortal souls, 
with energies irresistible, and such a puri- 
fying influence as cannot fail. Thus, when 
reiterated experiment had satisfactorily de- 
monstrated that the blood of hulls and goats 
could not take away sin, Christ, the Lamb 
of God, appeared once in the end of the 
world to take away sin by the sacrifice of 
himself and by this one offering hath for 
ever perfected them that are sanctified. 

By the blood of the Lamb we may there- 
fore understand the great gospel sacrifice 
which Jesus Christ, the high priest of our 
profession, presented in our nature and our 
name, through which we receive the atone- 
ment, and by the sovereign and permanent 
virtue of which we are washed, we are sanc- 
tified, we are justified. 



CHUJSTrANITY REALIZED. IQ? 

This is the only laver in which the pol- 
luted children of men can ever be purified 
from all the inherent defilement of a deprav- 
ed nature, the taint of hereditary corrup- 
tion, foul passions, base habits, and unhal- 
lovi^ed desires. What institution but that 
of mercy could ever better their hearts, re- 
nevi^ their wills, or sanctify their lives? 
Whoever is blessed with the knowledge of 
his own numerous imperfections, and feels 
himself humbled and mortified by com- 
paring his impotence and obligations, must 
draw peculiar satisfaction and comfort from 
a dispensation so well calculated for sup- 
plying his defects. Does it not give us 
such discoveries, views, and impressions of 
our nature, our circumstances, the perfec- 
tions, the counsels, the laws, and the govern- 
ment of God, as, under the influence of di- 
vine grace, are immediate and infallible 
means of moral purity, comfort, order, and 
perfection. 

Thus the provisions of the gospel cove- 
nant are ample, and accommodated to all our 
spiritual Vv^ants. It is furnished with doc^ 

s 2 



198 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

trines peculiarly fitted for cleansing us from 
all filthiness of the fleshy and perfecting ho- 
liness in the fear of the Lord; precepts 
which have the directest tendency to make 
us holy in all manner of conversation ; ex- 
amples of the highest possible excellence, 
and not the less practicable that they are 
perfect ; the greatest interests and most im- 
portant motives ; and rewards which no 
finite capacity can estimate, no contingency 
frustrate, and no period in the boundless ex- 
tent of futurity survive or exliaust I 



PIETY TRIUMPHANT. 

Therefore are they before the throne of 
God. — "They came out of great tribulation, 
have xvashed their robes and made them 
white in the blood of the JLamb^ and by that 
means they are made meet to be partakers 
of the inheritance of the saints in light. 
There is the same connection between the 
holiness of our lives and the perfection of 
our natures, sanctification on earth and" glo- 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 199 

rificatioii in heaven, as between seed-time 
and liarvest, or cause and effect. 

The idea is borrowed from superiority of 
rank in society. Few arrive at any elevat- 
ed situation or authority among their fel- 
low-creatures by measures either equitable 
or innocent. Crowns of princes are often 
wrested with rapacity from the harmless and 
peaceable, generally supported at the ex- 
pence of their liberties, their properties, and 
sometimes their lives, and, in most cases, 
worn in defiance of their rights, their com- 
plaints, and their. wrongs. Not so the dis- 
tinctions of such as are thus before the throne ^ 
and made kings and priests unto God. 
They receive them indeed as the reward of 
grace, and not of debt. For the best on 
earth, after all their acquisitions and exer- 
tions, are still but unprofitable servants. 
They correspond, however, with the spirit 
and genius of that divine institution which 
is the equitable establishment of infinite 
wisdom. They result from his promise 
whose faithfulness endurethjor ever. They 
are exhibited to an intelligent universe as 



200 CHRISTIANITY, REALIZED. 

eternal memorials that he is ever mindful of 
his covenant. 

Thus the comiection between real worth 
and true happiness is founded on the con- 
stitution of things, and beyond the possibi- 
lity of change. And it is as natural to ex. 
pect that the whole system of the universe 
should be annihilated, as that a bad life 
should end well, or the hopes of a good one 
be disappointed. 

He who made the world, who rules it in 
mercy, and who hath redeemed it by his 
blood, has the whole ordering of our lot in 
time, and will also provide for us through 
eternity. The propriety and expediency of 
all his dispensations, dark and mysterious 
as they now appear, shall then be discerned, 
acknowledged, and applauded. When his 
entire economy is openly displayed in its fi- 
nished state, as terminating in the consum- 
mate felicity of his servants, its absolute rec- 
titude and holiness will fill the species with 
astonishment, silence for ever the murmur- 
ings of the wicked, and realize the most 
sanguine expectations of the good. 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 201 

But who can describe a glorious and happy- 
immortality ? This much only we do know, 
that the eye sees nothing like the objects, 
the ear hears nothing like the melody, the 
heart feels nothing on earth like the raptures 
of heaven. Then shall we associate with all 
the spirits of just men made perfect, with 
the wise and tlie good of every country and 
denomination, with the friends we love, and 
all who knew us and to whom we were 
known. Above all, we shall see God as he 
is, and be like him, with whom is thtjburi' 
tain of life, in whose presence is fulness of 
joy, and at whose right hand are pleasure^ 
for evermore. 

Beautiful and blessed assembly ! what 
are all our sweetest and happiest circles in 
comparison with you! Alas! the gayest 
among them are but groups without life, 
forms without reality, the hollow spectacles 
of vanity, or at best the semblance only 
of what they would be. Happy situation ! 
where pleasure is not destroyed, but exalted 
and refined, where virtue is the pursiuit, 
and perfection the attainment of all, where 



202 CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 

nothing is present to interrupt, and nothing 
wanting to complete, felicity. Nothing in- 
sidious or ensnaring infests those flowery 
paths on which they tread, poisons those 
living waters of which they drink, or lurks 
in those verdant shades in which they re- 
pose. Hypocrisy, dissimulation, or deceit 
of any kind, has no countenance from one 
of all yon fair association ! Their harmo- 
ny is not marred by levity, nor dieir purity 
tarnished with guilt. There, society exhi- 
bits all her holiest, softest, best attractions ! 
Ceremonious etiquette has no place, and 
creates no aversion in the heavenly inter- 
course of the saints in light. There can be 
no strangers where all are equally welcome, 
no reserve where there is no design, and 
no suspicion where all are known. In- 
trigue is not the fashion in our father'^s 
house. There, obscurity hides not the 
splendor of merit; poverty quashes not 
the sentiments of respect; rudeness blus- 
ters not in the presence of delicacy ; cau^ 
tion disguises not the workings of the heart ; 
asperity misinterprets not the language of 



CHRISTIANITY REALIZED. 203 

candour; jealousy preys not in the bosom 
of friends ; indigence abates not the ardour 
of benevolence ; hope deferred makes not 
the heart sick. 

It is thine, Eternity, to consolidate these 
amiable attachments, and give permanency 
to the joys of the blessed ! The silken cord 
which binds them together in the divinest 
union is' in thy hand. Thou art the charrn 
which consummates their happiness. With- 
out thee, sadness would deform their faces, 
sorrow mar their son^, and melancholy 
shroud their bowers ! Thy presence adds 
vivacity to theirs, animates their pleasures, 
and stamps the most lasting and substantial 
excellence on whatever warms the fancy, or 
ravishes the heart, in all the heavenly world ! 



204 



PROVIDENCE. 



Heaven without light, water with- 
out bounds, animals without eyes, and men 
without law, are but faint emblems of a 
world without Providence ! The supreme 
governing principle of being and order thus 
withdrawn, darkness, confusion, and ruin 
were inevitable and immediate! The fir- 
mament which, as a mighty canopy or arch 
of state, the Most High God hath stretched 
over our heads, would loosen, shiver into 
atoms, and involve the whole material frame 
in its downfall! The planetary worlds, no 
longer confined within their respective 
spheres, would justle and confound the mo- 
tions and utilities of each other! The sun, 
instead of rejoicing like a gia?tt to run his 
raccy would languish and grow dim, the 



PROVIDENCE. 205 

moon wander from her beaten path, the 
stars withhold their light, the seasons cease 
their annual rounds, the winds bring no more 
health and refreshment on their wings ; the 
clouds shed no rain, the earth yield no in- 
crease, and men and animals and nature be 
all prematurely precipitated into one com- 
mon grave! 

Y^ fools, who say in your hearts there is 
no God, tell us, what reason but Providence 
can be assigned or devised, why the uni- 
verse, during the flight of so many centu- 
ries, hath not actually come to this fearful 
end? 



BENIGN INFLUENCES OF HEAVEN. 

It hath pleased God to collect into one 
mass all the light he has made, that from 
this vast treasury all the world may be illu- 
minated. By the rays of this magnificent 
body we have the use of our eyes, contem- 
plate the visible works of God, perform our 
duty, select our enjoyments, and pursue 

T 



206 PROVIDENCE. 

our interests. But for the sun's own light 
we had never seen his beauty, which ex- 
ceeds all the other beauties of nature as 
much as the heavens exceed the earth. 
What is spiritually said of his Maker is ma- 
terially true of him : He dwelleth in light 
that is inaccessible and full of glory. The 
benefits which accompany his rising up 
and his going down, and pervade the whole 
of his mighty circuit, are as palpable as they 
are numerous. But they best know his 
real value who are blind, or shut up in dun- 
geons, or abandoned to the accidents occa- 
sioned by his absence. Who can estimate 
the advantage of light? What a source of 
convenience and pleasure! It is adapted by 
the wisdom of all ages to paint the highest 
acquisitions of knowledge and virtue. And 
we learn from holy writ, that our bodies 
were not m,ore dark and disconsolate with- 
out the sun, than our souls actually are with- 
out God, without Christ, and without hope 
in the world. 

Far beyond our system, and farther 
above our knowledge, other systems and 



PROVIDENCE. 207 

Other worlds, peopled by other beings, per- 
haps occupying superior spheres, and an- 
swering sublimer ends, demonstrate the 
wisdom and benignity which preside over 
all things. It is because the Lord God 
omnipotent reigneth^ their magnitude, their 
motions, their mutual relations, utilities, 
and effects, after rolling for ages round their 
respective centres, are to this day as they 
were, as orderly, as wonderful, and as mys- 
terious ! 

How happily does the regular succession 
of day and night accord with our frailties 
and convenience ! The one affords op- 
portunity for labour, and the other for rest. 
This lends a covering for all creatures who 
prey on others, as they leave their dens and 
holes, and prowl for sustenance. That in- 
vites the busy sons of men and their do- 
mestic animals to fulfil the various duties of 
life, and regale themselves at the table which 
nature sets before them. Both are empha- 
tic images of the very different compensa- 
tion in reserve for all who serve God and 
all who serve him not : of an everlasting 



208 PROVIDENCE. 

day that shall finally dawn on the former, 
when their sun shall no more go down ; and 
of an eternal night destmed at the same 
time to close upon the latter, v/hen the day 
shall never breaks and the shadow never Jiee 

By the obvious course of the sun, the an- 
nual motion of the earth, and the relative 
position of both, the seasons visit us in their 
order, and each is fraught with a fresh ac- 
cession to our common stock of enjoyment 
and mercy and blessing. From a vicissi- 
tude thus salutary and auspicious to all who 
inhabit the terrestrial globe, we have seed- 
time and harvest, and corn and wine, and 
all manner of food for man and beast in 
abundance. 

Winter leads on this genial train, and* 
though harsh and severe in aspect, is kind 
and wholesome in effect. It kills and con- 
verts into useful manure all that vermin 
which, kept alive, after devouring the sta- 
mina of every useful plant, might fasten 
with avidity, and glut their appetite, on 
aur hapless race ! It invigorates every 



PROVIDENCE. ~ 209 

vegetable principle, meliorates, fattens, and 
prepares the soil. It reanimates our droop- 
ing spirits, and braces all the fibres of the 
human frame. It operates in the natural 
somewhat like adversity in the moral world ; 
its fiercest asperities are preludes of pleasure, 
its gloomiest clouds indicate a brighter sky, 
its blackest tempests give notice of better 
things at hand. 

Happy they, who, surviving all the wreck 
and hardship occasioned by the turbulence 
and rage of the elements in this dreary sea- 
son, hail the approach of spring, which 
bursts on a desolated world w^ith the lustre 
and benignity of the sun after a dark and 
stormy night. What a welcome and joy- 
ous reception every where accompanies the 
presence, and marks the progressive move- 
ments of this nev*7 guest! Nature at her 
call awakes, and ail her vital springs and 
energies revive ! The mighty pulse of life 
then begins to agitate the heart. There the 
great fountain of renovation originates, over- 
fiow^s, and deluges in copious and living 
streams all the fossil, the vegetable, and the 

t2 



210 PROVIDENCE. 

animal worlds. The earth opens her bosom 
to receive the seed from the hand of the 
sower, and, under the fostering care of Pro- 
vidence, soon yields such a prospect as 
equally delights the eye and ravishes the 
heart of every living thing. How charming 
do her various scenes appear, as the verdure 
deepens, the stem sprouts, the bud unfolds, 
and the shoot extends ! The mount^ains 
and vallies, and hills and dales, and woods 
and wilds, and all their inhabitants, rejoice ! 
In the field and the grove nothing is heard 
but the melody of love. Man alone, con- 
scious of that gracious influence in which all 
this vivifying motion originates, awed into 
reverence, and warmed by devotion, hails 
with gratitude the harbinger of heaven ! 

It is the prerogative of summer to accele- 
rate the growth commenced, and the com- 
pletion of the hopes inspired by spring. 
Now the clouds, drop fatness, the meadows 
are green with herbage, shrubberies are gay 
with flowers, orchards with blossoms, and 
trees with leaves. The corn, which diver- 
sify the plains, enrich the inclosures, and 



PROVIDENCE. 211 

swell the husbandman's heart, are already 
in the ear, and, in some favourite spots, 
grow mellow ; the rose-buds disclose their 
hidden beauties, odoriferous plants shed 
abroad their fragrance, and all the earliest fruit 
invite our senses to a banquet of luxury. 
In animated nature the progression is every 
where proportionate. The hedges swarm 
with insects, the streams with trout, the pas- 
turage with rising herds, and every hillock 
and every clod with myriads of creeping 
things. What department in all the pre- 
cincts of existence does not actually teem 
with new life? Of fowl particularly the 
brood is hatched, and all the dams are busy 
fledging their young, and teaching them 
by what means to subsist and weather the 
inconveniences of harsher seasons, or less 
favourable climes. Some relinquish the 
old for a new plumage ; others, watching the 
vicissitudes of cold and heat, take flight for 
milder regions; and all, according to their 
respective instincts, improve the present for 
the future. The bee and the ant, vulgarly 
distinguished for their industry, but exem- 



213 PEOVlJaENCE. 

plify the precaution of millions in rendering 
this bountiful season subservient to their 
subsequent wants. 

What a lesson of diligence and activity 
does all this hold up to the heedless and 
dissipated sons and daughters of humanity, 
and how loudly and forcibly does it call upon 
us all, to seize our fleeting moments, and 
lose no opportunity of doing good ! It 
tells us, in the most pathetic language, to 
make hay -while the sun shines^ and on no 
occasion, or by any solicitation whatever, to 
waste a minute of that time ivhich cannot 
be recalled, in sloth, insignificance, or im- 
piety, or to leave a faculty unemployed, a 
talent uncultivated, a passion unsubdued, a 
debt uncancelled, or a duty undone. 

It is reserved for autumn to demonstrate 
the reality and benignity of Providence, by 
furnishing the great family of God with the 
richest abundance of all good things This 
is the annual jubilee of Nature, in which 
she rejoiceth in all her works, by which 
they are brought to maturity, and to which 
all her various functions and exertions ai'C 



PROVIDENCE.' 213 

V 

uniformly directed. Here the mechanism 
she has carried on by so many powers and 
in so many forms, having fermented her 
whole mass, rendered every thing of its 
kind productive, and filled the world with 
wonders, seems for the present suspended, 
and she rests from the labours of the year, 
pauses on the progress she hath made, re- 
plenishes her granaries, opens them with a 
liberal hand, covers for us a table in the 
wilderness, and invites her numerous off- 
spring to be happy, and indulge themselves 
with her bounty. See ! where fulness, in 
various shapes, ripe to the touch, and 
tempting to the eye, perched on every tree, 
crowds and weighs down the bearers ! where 
the vines are loaded with clusters of grapes, 
and where the fields, smiling under a con- 
sciousness of the plenty they exhibit, are 
yellow with the golden stores they are 
about to pour into the laps of their owners. 
And is not the sight enough to inspire us 
with a confidence in his providence who 
maketh the corn to grow, the grass to 
spring, every thing to ripen, and givetli and 



214 PROVIDENCE. 

preserveth for our use the kindly fruits of 
the earth, so as in due time we may enjoy 
them? 

How easy were it for him, who holds the 
elements in his hand, to blast our blessings 
with a curse, defeat all our labours, and 
frustrate all our expectations, by blighting 
dews, or shaking winds, or rotting rains, 
to render all our plantations barren, our 
culture abortive, our best grounds, our 
gardens, and our very houses, a waste how- 
ling wilderness ! 



TERRESTRIAL ACCOMMODATION. 

Thus, for our sakes the day breaks, the 
sun shines, the rain falls, the heavens and 
the earth combine their energies to do us 
good, and the seasons steadily perform their 
functions, never visit us but in kindness, 
always blessing us with the richest abun- 
dance, and touching tlie liveliest and best 
spring in our natures with comfort and hope. 
Thine, O Lord, are all that our palates re-^ 



PROVIDENCE. 215 

iish or our appetites crave, and thou art the 
source of whatever we enjoy. Therefore 
sing unto the Lord with thanksgivings sing 
praises upon the harp unto God^ who pre- 
pareth rain for the earthy who maketh grass 
to grow upon the 7nou?itains, who giveth to 
the beast his food, and to the young ravens 
which cry. 

The very air we breathe, that glorious 
mantle which invests our globe, is impreg- 
nated with innumerable blessings to the 
children of men. Through this Wonderful 
medium the rays of the sun are transmitted, 
and all his other inestimable benefits and utili- 
ties communicated. Its heat in the lower re- 
gions draws up the vapours from the earth ; 
its cold in the middle thickens these va- 
pours in the clouds; and these clouds, in 
moderate and seasonable showers, water, 
refresh, enrich, and embellish the earth ! 

The whole world of waters, directed by 
Providence, serve the designs of Heaven in 
ministering to our convenience and neces- 
sity. Their great reservoir is the ocean, 
which sends forth its springs, and rivers. 



216 FROVIDENCE. 

and rivulets, and dews, and rains, all over 
the universe. Here fish of all kinds, and in 
the greatest abundance, are spawned and 
nourished, and grow, in many instances, to 
the most enormous size. It is their ele- 
ment; and its shores, its lakes, and its bays, 
lay open this inexhaustible storehouse to hu- 
man industry. By navigation we are ena- 
bled to traverse the utmost boundaries ' of 
the great deep, and render it a channel of 
communication between places the most op- 
posite, and countries the most remote. The 
commerce carried on by its means, in com- 
plication and magnitude, has no parallel 
among the inventions of art! And it is 
none of the least awful in the mysterious ap- 
pearances of Providence, that man is per- 
mitted to transfer his worst passions to its 
pacific bosom, and stain its briny surges 
with the blood of his fellow- men! 

Nor is there in the whole earth any spot 
not equally pregnant with benevolence. 
What are mountains but chambers of the 
sweetest springs, or magazines of the rich- 
est ore ? The vallies drink up the waters, 



PROVIDENCE. 217 

and arc enriched by them. These are le- 
velled and made solid for our feet to tread 
upon, and fraught within and without with 
all things needful for man and beast. From 
quarries of stone, and pits of clay, the loam 
in the fields, and the trees of the forest, we 
are furnished with materials for every spe- 
cies of building, from the meanest cot to the 
loftiest mansion ! What wealth and conse- 
quence and utility are derived from the 
gold and silver and precious stones, so often 
dug from the bowels of the earth ! These, 
to use a quaint phrase, make trump in the 
great game of life, which every one plays in 
the world, and are the means of all the traf- 
fic and bustle which occupy and interest the 
minds of most men. Nay, so diversified 
are our wants, and so bountiful the hand 
that supplies them, that even the baser me- 
tals of iron, and steel, and lead, and tin, and 
copper, and brass, have all their use in our 
accommodation. 

But what shall we say of the vegetable 
kingdom, where the eye and the ear riot in 
luxury of sights and sounds, and where 

u 



218 PROVIDENCE. 

there is the richest repast for every sense and 
every appetite? Here all is goodness and 
mercy, infinitely varied and ineffably pre- 
cious. Surely there is not an herb in the 
field, nor a tree in the wood, nor a flower in 
the garden, nor a single blade of grass, nor 
one solitary plant in all this paradise of God, 
but is actually useful for food, or for medi- 
cine, or for both. 

Of beings endowed with sensitive life, on 
which of them are not the lineaments of di- 
vinity palpably impressed? Wherever we 
fix our attention ,the Creator is yet more vi- 
sible than the creature. Their sexes, their 
generations, their birth, their shape, their 
lives, their instincts, their sympathies, affini- 
ties, similarities, diversities, and antipathies, 
all so effectually conspire for their own 
good and for the use of man, and so entirely 
without their own wisdom or contrivance, 
that they alone furnish proof sufficient to 
substantiate a Providence. What power in- 
ferior in sagacity or goodness could direct 
the fowls of heaven to build their nests in 
high and hidden places, to lay their eggs, to 



PROVIDENCE. . 219 

hatch their young, or to feed and protect 
them when hatched? He who made every 
creature competent to its own defence, arms 
the lion with fangs, the ox with horns, the 
horse with hoofs, the bird with wings to flee 
away, the fox with cunning, the rabbit with 
holes, the hare with fleetness, and every 
timid and impotent animal with the means 
of providing more or less for its own safety. 
How manifold are thy works ^ O Lord ! In 
wisdo?n hast thou made them ^alL The earth 
is full of thy goodness. 



CONSOLATION. ^ 

How big is the doctrine of Providence 
with consolation to creatures placed as we are 
in the midst of so many dangers ! Who can 
contemplate the care we are under, the hand 
that supplies our wants, or the arm that up- 
holds our goings, and not be penetrated by 
the deepest and most lively emotions of 
gratitude and wonder? 

Wherever we cast our eyes, or turn 



220 PROVIDENCE. 

our thoughts, backwards or forwards, on 
heaven above, or the earth beneath, the 
shore or the ocean, the world or ourselves, 
the glorious Author, Preserver, and Gover- 
nor still appears the most conspicuous, the 
most interesting, and the most amiable ob- 
ject of all. Yes ; he commands our atten- 
tion and excites our love in every situation 
we fill, every blessing we enjoy, and every 
innocent gratification we indulge. And 
whatever admiration we feel for the profu- 
sion of tenderness that is strewed about our 
paths, our dwellings, and our very beds, is 
lost in the sentiments of humility, confi- 
dence, and awe, habitually inspired by a 
sense of his presence who is all in all ! 

Thus the great living and life-giving God 
hath written his name upon every creature, 
and imprinted the footsteps of his wisdom 
on all the arrangements of things, in their 
actions and evolutions, from the basis to 
the summit of creation ! 

What is the whole year but such an in- 
cessant and palpable appeal to our senses 
and experience, as abundantly substantiates 



PROVIDENCE. 221 

the reality and benignity of an ever watch- 
ful and ever active Providence ! All na- 
ture is full of God, features of his charac- 
ter, and symbols of his presence. We 
cannot go or be, or act or suifer, or enjoy, 
but where we are constantly under his eye, 
kept in the hollow of his hand^ led by his 
Spirit, feasted by his love, or revived by 
his mercy. This vast universe, of which 
our globe is but a small portion, is that ini-- 
mense and capacious temple which he hath 
reared and consecrated for his worship ! cm* 
the one great altar on which all his crea- 
tures, in all their various orders and kinds, 
offer him the dutiful, acceptable and perpe- 
tual sacrifice of humility and acknowledge- 
ment. And who would not console them- 
selves ift the happiness of reposing in his 
paternal bosom, where the weary rest, th 
lambs are carried, and the ravens fed? 



u2 



<^ 



222 PROVIDENCE. 

PRACTICAL COROLLARIES. 

111 does it become the children of so 
much indulgence, and so many mercies, to 
be dissatisfied with any of all the dispensa- 
tions of Providence. It is a patience wor- 
thy of a man and a christian to acquiesce 
with every measure in God's government 
of the world, and to think all wisely and 
well done that is done by him. He can do 
nothing that is not for our gojod. His own 
glory is the chief end of our being, as well 
as of all his actions, and he can have no 
glory apart from the perfection of his crea- 
tures. However, therefore, we are accom- 
modated with good or bad fortune, doomed 
to a life of trouble and drudgery, or caress- 
ed in the bosom of prosperity, it is our duty 
to bless God much more for the discipline 
that corrects, than for the indulgence that 
may spoil. 

How many are in the habit of censuring 
what they do not understand, rather than 
adoring -the kindness of God in what is 



PROVIDENCE. 223 

most obvious ! These are the discontented 
who create their own misery, and are al- 
ways whining and complaining of God's 
dealings, accusing his care of neglect,, his 
wisdom of folly, and his eye of overlooking 
them and their affairs. But while he can 
do nothing to please them, how should 
creatures like themselves be expected to 
give entire satisfaction? They are never 
placed where they would, too much on one 
hand, or too much on the other, too distant 
from that friend, or too near this enemy, 
too far below their business, or their busi- 
ness too far below them, too superior to their 
neighbour, or their neighbour too superior 
to them. And the meaning always is, they 
are not so well or so high in their own 
opinion as they wish. God never can do 
enough, though he does every day and 
every hour more for them than they deserve. 
They would repair every thing by reform- 
ing all, not according to his will, but their 
own ; and, under pretence of serving him, 
they are all the while solicitous only to 
serve themselves. May a blessing light on 



224 PROVIDENCE. 

that man's head and heart, who, every time 
he rises from his bed, sakites the mercy of 
a new morning in these words, or words 
like these : ** Do with me, O Lord, this 
" day, and all my days, be they few or 
** many, or good or evil, what thou wilt. 
'* Here is thy servant, prepared by thy 
** grace, and ready for thy service, to per- 
" form the hardest duty, or submit to the 
" heaviest affliction. Lift me up, or cast 
*' me down, send me to the right or to the 
** left, make me high or make me low, ha- 
'^ rass me with want, or deluge me with 
** plenty, let men bow to me as I pass, 
** or rate me as a beggar or an outcast, I 
'' am thine, and at thy disposal. If my 
*' patience must be tried by poverty, dis- 
" tress, or obloquy, it is under thy care, 
'' in th) keeping, and may triumph by thy 
*^ strength. If thy name can be glorified 
" by my disgrace, or religion derive any 
*' credit from my shame, then shall dis- 
" grace be my honour, my shame my glo- 
" ry, my affliction my happiness, and my 
*' sufferings my reward !" 



PROVIDENCE^ 225 

This is to speak like a philosopher and 
a christian, or a man after God's own heart, 
and not like men of the world, ever dis- 
pleased with God's management, and ever 
mending God's works, pretending to do 
better for God than God can do for them, 
naming God always, but always meaning 
themselves. 

Blessed are they in the house, and in the 
field, in their basket, and in their store, in 
their going out, and their coming in, who 
set their hearts at rest in the full assurance 
that the Providence of God is continually 
as a wall of fire round about them, and 
whose prevailing object in life is humbly to 
imitate his example, and endeavour to pro- 
fit by all his actions, who doth nothing un- 
profitable in the world. 

When the morning dawns, prostrate 
yourselves on your knees, and thank a good 
God for the light of another day, and the 
fresh opportunity afforded you of working 
and earning a livelihood for yourselves and 
families ; and when night comes, bless him 
for the rest it brings along with it, and re- 



226 PROVIDENCE. 

pose your fatigued and exhausted frames 
with confidence under the shadow of his 
wings. 

When your affairs succeed, you have 
matter for thanks, and when they miscarry, 
exercise for patience. 

If well with your friends, it is a token 
for good, and illustrates the kindness of 
God ; if ill, it is an example of his disci- 
pline, and demonstrates his justice. 

Are you in health, regard it as the call 
of Providence to be active and industrious 
in doing your duty, and redeeming your 
time. Are you sick, consider it as a warn- 
ing or watchword that the night cometh in 
which no man can work. 

The death of relations enjoins you to live 
upon God without them, and their life 
shows how to live upon God in them, as it 
is his Providence that takes care both of 
them and of y6u. 

Whoever may be disposed to do you a 
kindness, bless GoU for them ; or an injury, 
bless them for God, and for Christ's sake, 
who bids us bless them who curse us, do good 



PROVIDENCE. 227 

to them ivho hate us, and pray for such as 
despltefully use us. 

We may profit much- by those who love 
us, but for the most part more by those 
who do not, as in general we have more 
need of evil than good,' of injuries than fa- 
vours, and of enemies than friends. 

A firm reliance on the bounteous and 
benign providence of God, will actually 
enable you to make an advantage of every 
accident, and every evil. It will be in you 
as it has been in the best of all ages, such 
a well of living waters as will sweeten 
whatever you drink, be it the nauseous 
draught of remorse, the wormwood and 
gall of repentance, or the dregs of the cup 
of affliction. A dependence thus inde- 
pendent of the world will refine and raise 
your affections from what is sordid and 
gross to that which is pure and heavenly, 
and turn every sour into sweet, harsh into 
pleasant, and poison into medicine. 

Who then would step aside from this 
God, or resist his Providence for any seem- 
ing advantage, exchange his wall for theirs. 



228 PROVIDENCE. , 

or, from a love of ease or pleasure, to in- 
dulge a loose passion, or promote a dying 
interest, forsake the way of righteousness ? 
Sin is always rebellion against God's will, 
but to sin from hopes of reward is to blas- 
pheme his wisdom, to provide against the 
provision of Heaven, to secure ourselves of 
peace by plunging in war, and to expect that 
for doing evil which God hath promised 
only to well-doing. 

What a sad and fearful thing must it be 
for a man to look into his own heart and to 
find it full of guilt, without confidence in 
the power that preserves, or hope in the 
mercy that must save him. Assailed by 
trouble, convulsed with disease, or in the 
jaws of death, O God, what an awful ac- 
count has he to settle with thee who is not 
a favomte of Providence, whose life has 
been hitherto without worth, or is black 
with criminal conduct, who has acted a 
treacherous part to God, his neighbour, or 
his own soul, dealt perfidiously in his 
friendships, deceived the unwary, and over- 
reached the honest, been a liar to one, an 



PROVIDENCE. 229 

impostor to another, fraudulent or mis- 
chievous to some, a thief or a robber to 
several, a slanderer, a traitor, or an assassin, 
to the character, the peace, or the interest of 
but one individual ! How will he be able to 
bear himself under the bitter accusations of 
a conscience alarmed and big with terror, 
while the truth he belied, the simplicity he 
seduced, the confidence he betrayed, and 
the innocence he ruined, convict him to his 
face at the bar of God ? In habits of health 
and gaiety, and while all goes well with him, 
he may find his account in spurning at de- 
cency and sacred things, but the moment 
affliction, misfortune, or only reflection 
comes, there is an end of his levity and 
madness, and nothing in all the world he 
would not willingly relinquish for a good 
conscience, a sound mind, and a heart at 
ease. 

Several observations, particularly towards the close 
of the preceding exercise, are selected from Outram. 

X 



230 



EMPTINESS 



OF 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 



Why, O thou Teacher of right- 
eousness, are the blessings of thy divine re- 
ligion tendered only on such terms as few 
who can do otherwise will care to obey? 
Why is the hard alternative pressed upon us 
by all that is interesting and tremendous in 
a life to come — earth without heaven, or 
heaven without earth? Why should our 
temporary acquisitions bar the fruition of 
immortal perfection? 

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth. What I not save the surplus of 
well-earned gain, get what we lawfully 
can, keep with care what we obtain with 



EMPTINESS OF, &C. 231 

difficulty, rise by honest industry to wealth 
and independence, improve our circumstan- 
ces or our rank by labour or sagacity, make 
fortunes in lucrative situations, or secure 
provisions for the future from the profits of 
the present! 

All this may be just, may be expedient, 
may be laudable, when our prior obliga- 
tions of duty, of humanity, of benevolence, 
as men, as christians, as masters, as fathers, 
as friends, as citizens of the world at large, 
are faithfully discharged. Whatever a kind 
Providence, by fruitful seasons, or prosper- 
ous traffic, affiDrds, beyond the reasonable 
demands of competence and comfort, is not 
ours f5ut God's, and to appropriate any 
share of it for gratifying the feverish desires 
of avarice, or swelling the pomp of profu- 
sion, while one claim of justice or benefi- 
cence remains unsatisfied, is a gross prosti- 
tution of divine bounty, and sacrilege 
against the high commands of Heaven ! 

However unwelcome this mortifying doc- 
trine may sound in their ears of such as are 
just setting out in life, amidst circumstaii- 



232 EMPTINESS OF 

ces which promise a full tide of prosperity, 
or in theirs, who are already giddy by their 
own success, and callous to others' misfor- 
tunes, defective in all the amiable duties of 
humanit}^, and the dupes of a false conse- 
quence, which only makes them little in 
proportion as they would be great ; or 
even in theirs, whom riches, by the cares of 
getting, keeping, and relinquishing, make 
as miserable as they are full, as poor as they 
are wealthy, and as ungrateful to God as he 
has been kind to them ; or in all theirs, 
whoever they are, whose minds the god of 
this Vv^orld hath blinded that they may be- 
lieve a lie — it is a doctrine which, never- 
theless, the great God hath sent his Son to 
publish and authenticate for our instruction 
and improvement, which Jesus, the blessed 
Author and Finisher of our Jaithy exem- 
plified in his life and ratified by his death, 
which all the best men in all the best times 
have believed, avowed, and taught; and 
which is still stamped by the firm convic- 
tion of the few, who glory in the cross of 
Christ, who have no confidence in the fleshy 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 233 

and to whom the world has been crucified 
as they are to the world. Bred in his 
school, and transformed into his image, who 
hath called them from darkness to lights 
they deny all ungodliness and worldly lust^ 
set their affections on things above, and not 
on things beloxv, value time only as prepa- 
ratory to eternity, and lay up for themselves 
treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor 
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not 
break through nor steaL 

To them, to you, to the old, to the 
young, to the high and the low, the rich 
and tlie poor, is the word of this exhorta- 
tion sent. Embrace it as a rule of life 
which will make vou wise unto salvation, 
as the admonition of a friend who will not 
deceive, as the advice of a physician who 
is able and ready and happy to save ! It 
comes from an authority vvhich cannot be 
questioned ; appeals to an experiment 
which all mankind have made ; and is sanc- 
tioned by whatever is solemn or alluring, 
terrible or delightful, interesting or valuable.^ 
in a spiritual and everlasting world ! 

x2 



234 EMPTINESS OF 



UNATTAINABLE. 

hay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth. The task is impracticable because 
immense. You may as well think of mak- 
ing the whole year summer, every month 
May, all you hear music, and all you see 
beauty. When you convert the elements, 
change the constitution of things, or give 
being to that which is not, you may find in 
the earth what it never possessed. 

Alas ! who would expect no molestation 
where so many troubles abound, ease among 
thorns and briars, peace in the midst of war, 
or a life of joy in a valley of tears ! To lay up 
treasures upon earth is to measure that 
which has no dimensions, to fill up a gulph 
which has no bottom, to condense the wa- 
ters, or to gather the winds! 

Let us not imagine the earth, which has 
been a wilderness to others, a paradise to us, 
or those baubles to be treasures, by which 
so many have been deceived and destroyed. 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 235 

The appetites they create, the desires they 
excite, the passions they inflame, are inces. 
sant, insatiable, unextinguishable ! Like 
the horse -leech, the fire, the grave, they cry 
without ceasing, Give ! give ! and never say 
it is enough ! 

How emphatic and decisive the terms of 
the heavenly command, Love not the worlds 
neither the things that are in the world* 
Debase not your natures or your hearts by 
indulging a fondness for so contemptible an 
object. Covetousness grasps at the whole 
world, would be master of all, monopolize 
all, and dwell alone ! Like the lion among 
beasts, the eagle among birds, or the despot 
in human society, it is never content but 
where it can proul a^d devour without con- 
troul. Whatever should be the extent of 
the miser's property, his profits or his pros- 
pects, he is still after more, adds house to 
house, and field to field, is churlish at home 
and parsimonious abroad, backward in what 
he gives, nor even satisfied in what he takes, 
enlarges, gathers, heaps, increases, and lite- 



236 EMPTINESS OF 

rally loads himself, as the prophet says, with 
thick clay. 

The very heathens complained of this ra- 
pacity, and compared it to a vacuum which 
is infinite, a sea which has no shore, or a 
line without an end. Like the man in the 
fable who would stay until the river should 
run dry, covetousness lives in habitual ex- 
pectation of receiving enough to ^lut all its 
avidities, but every fresh supply creates a 
fresh appetite, and the more it gets the 
more it wants. What but wealth do world- 
ly minds desire most to enjoy, dread most 
to lose, most anxiously pursue, most fer- 
vently serve, or most confidently trust? Is 
not the heart, under its influence, a prey to 
restless desires, distracted by a succession 
of sordid projects, narrowed by the cold and 
rigid apprehensions of low and selfish views, 
and kept in a constant flutter by hopes of 
gain and fears of loss ? How can the man 
whom it governs fulfil his obligations to 
God, to society, or to himself, with honour 
or conscience, while its cares and concerns 
besiege him without, the requisition? of it 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 237 

harass him within, the fruits of it blind his 
judgment, and the love of it perverts his 
will? 

O foolish and unwise I Ye travail with 
tvind, and shall feap the whirlwind. You 
have but one mouth to fill, and one body to 
clothe; and were all that the whole earth 
can yield m your possession, still the ravens 
in the desert are better fed, and the lilies in 
the valley more magnificently arrayed. 
What then is the mighty amount of all this 
prodigious solicitude and fatigue, but to 
share the dust with the serpent, and the 
mud with.the worm ! 



UNSUITABLE. 

Ijai/ 7iot Up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth. They suit not your natures, de- 
grade your desires, arKi are inadequate to 
your hopes. All earthly things are material 
and mortal. They accommodate the body, 
but are not competent to supply the exi- 
gencies of the soul. And to pamper the one 



238 EMPTINESS OF 

at the expence of the other, is a species of 
madness infinitely more extravagant than 
his, who grudges no care or cost in pro- 
vender for his horse, while he starves him- 
self to death. 

Why should we seek for the living among 
the dead? or put confidence in what has 
always proved treacherous ? or grub for 
joy where the whole world have found only 
vexation of spirit ? Surely it is not here 
we are to look for succour in the hour of 
trial, for consolation in affliction, for peace 
of conscience, for joy in the Holy Ghost, 
for inward, substantial, and permanent sa- 
tisfaction, xuhen the heart and the flesh faint 
and fail ! 

Go to the whole creation for happiness, 
and the earth will teil you, it is not in the 
furrow of the field ; the sea, that it is not in 
the bowels of the deep ; the animals who 
clothe your bodies and satiate your appe- 
tites, that it is not to be found among them. 
Even crowns, which bridle the fury of pow- 
er and stint the rage of ambition, contain 
no gem so precious, disclose no lustre so 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 239 

desirable, involve no interest so dear and 
important. 

We can adorn the head, may they sa}^ 
but we cannot satisfy the heart ; dazzle the 
eye and amuse the fancy, but have no charm 
to rid the mind of its sorrow or the con- 
science of its sting. Universal experience 
subscribes to the wisest estimate ever made 
of sensual enjoyments, Vanity of vanities^ 
all is vanity. 

How frail is our connexion with the 
world ! Loosely do we hang upon it, and 
loosely may it hang upon us ! What is life 
but a dream, a bubble, a vapour, which on- 
ly floats or trembles for a moment on the 
view, and then expires? And what mortal 
acquisition or attachment survives the 
grave ? 

Nor is death the only means of tearing 
the world from their fondest embrace who 
give it an improper preference in their hearts. 
All things, all their properties, all their 
powers, are in the hands of God, instru- 
inents of his wrath, or ministers of his kind- 
ness. It is he who raiseth the beggar from 



240 EMPTINESS OF 

the dunghill^ and setteth him among princes 
— he who Jilleth the hungry with good 
things i and sendeth the rich empty axvay — 
he who giveth to wealth the wings, of the 
wmd, and openeth in every direction an 
avenue for its flight. By his commission 
its very causes often become its destroyers. 
Fire consumes it, water drowns it, sickness 
spoils its flavour, and sorrow renders it 
tiresome and useless ! 

Yes, a prodigal son, a treacherous ser- 
vant, a barren spring, unwholesome dews, 
rotting rains, pestiferous winds, scorching 
heats, or blighting colds, a droughty sum- 
mer, a bad harvest, an ill debt, or a suit 
at law, with a whole host of contingencies, 
wait but the dread permission of Heaven 
to rob you of your all, and make the rich- 
est on earth as calamitous and destitute as 
the poorest of the poor. What wise man 
would be fond of a false friend, solicit a 
false title, or depend upon a promise which 
he knoAvs to be false ? And what better 
reason can you allege for placing your af- 
fections on a false world, coveting that 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 241 

which is not, or chasing what never can be ^ 
found ? Wherefore should you be troubled 
about any thing but the one thing needful^ 
or, with the poor lunatic, complain of an 
aching finger, while a disease worse than 
mortal preys on the vitals, or rages in the 
brain ! 



WORTHLESS. . 

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth. They are as pernicious as they are 
poor, as hurtful as they are empty, and as 
malignant as they are unsatisfying. Some- 
thing in their nature and influence seems 
peculiarly hostile both to God and man. It 
sets up the world in the room of its Maker, 
and substitutes for his love in the heart en- 
mity against him. It divests our rational 
nature of the divine image, perverts all our 
moral powers, and reduces the glorious fa- 
culty of immortality to a level with the 
brutes that perish. Thus it supplants God, 
and degrades man. It does more. It at- 



242 lEMPTINESS OF 

^ tempts to destroy the conviction of the one, 
and it succeeds in accomplishing the ruin of 
the other. 

Atheism and misery are both the offspring 
of a carnal heart. It is this, and only this, 
that produces so much infidelity and loose 
living, makes men base, unfeeling, unprin- 
cipled, and fills the world with vice, society 
with fraud and falsehood, and the very tem- 
ple of the living God with grimace and hy- 
pocrisy. 

Why so little solicitous about the future 
and doubtful of another world, but that we 
rest in the present, and are perfectly satis- 
fied with this* The moment a man's de- 
sires are fired and start in the pursuit of for- 
tune, he indulges no affection or value for 
aught but profit. He forthwith studies the 
whole science of advantage, and appreciates 
every article, action, or consideration, 
whatever he does, or says, or sees, or hears, 
only by w^hat it will fetch. The world has 
got him in its power, is master of his pas- 
sions and his heart, controuls and regulates 
the whole of his conduct, sleeps with him in 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 243 

the night, wakes with him through the day, 
is his guide, his guardian, and his God, his 
counsellor at meals and market; does not 
even leave him in church, but sticks to him 
with the avidity of vermin, and, like vermin 
too, drops him only when he sickens or ex- 
pires. 

While fortune flows not in, he is out of 
spirits, at his wit's end, murmurs and mut- 
ters, repines, blasphemes, and distrusts 
Providence ; but in proportion, as plenty 
abounds, and business prospers, his heart 
swells, his manners grow haughty, and his 
passions turbulent. Of faith, and hope, 
and joy in believing, repentance, new obe- 
dience, judgment to come, and the hopes 
and fears of an eternal world, he knows not, 
nor desires to knov/. His apprehensions 
and concerns are about other objects. He 
cares for none of these things. They are 
to him as music to the deaf, colour to the 
blind, or motion to the dead. But the 
moment he hears of a good bargain, a lu- 
crative contract, the price of stock, the ba- 
lance of trade, or the state of exchange, his 



244 EMPTINESS OF 

senses are all alive and eager, and he is in- 
stantaneously as mute and attentive as a fish 
in its element. 

We are made with faculties and inclina- 
tions to contemplate, admire, and resem- 
ble our Maker; but the sordid ideas and 
grovelling prepossessions of loss and gain 
hang about us like a millstone j and supplant 
the aspiring, tendency of our natures by a 
proneness to live and die with the animals 
beneath our feet. It is this which chokes 
the seed of the word, and prevents its 
growth, which makes men weary of well- 
doing, which causes the love of many to 
wax cold, and which tempts more to part 
with their happiness, their souls, their God, 
and their all, for that which actually pro- 
fiteth nothing. What but a worldly and 
worthless temper hardens men's hearts, di- 
vests sin of its horror, and holiness of its 
charm, detaches multitudes from the faith 
and the hope of the gospel, and even makes 
them proud to know no godliness but gain, 
to cultivate no principle but the love of mo- 
ney, and to take up or drop rehgion as it 



EARTHLY tREASURES. 245 

promotes their interest, falls in with their 
humour, or is more or less in fashion. 

Nature hath rendered the objects and fa- 
culties of our attachments and pursuits in 
some degree analogous and congenial. 
The latter at least possess an assimilating in- 
fluence on the former. And nothing can 
more vilify and traduce the human intellect 
than a deliberate and systematic preference 
of the meanest and the worst to the noblest 
and best of all enjoyments. Shall powers im- 
mortal in their nature, and capable of im- 
mortal improvement, stoop for happiness 
to the sordid occupation of reptiles, grope 
ibr it in the circumventions of tmific, or ex- 
pect, by the refinements of duplicity, to ex- 
tract it from the hollov/ and carnal inter- 
course of the world ? 

The redemption of the soul is precious > 
Christ, the heir of all things^ who could 
have commanded all the treasures of the uni- 
verse, lived in want, and stampt a divinity 
on a low estate by appearing in the form of 
a servant^ that he might demonstrate ho\v 
very little affinity there is between eternal 

,y2 



246 EMPTINESS OF 

life and worldly wealth, either in his procur- 
ing it for us, or our deriving it from him. 

In the whole extent of human folly there 
is no madness equal to this ! Talk of sell* 
ing a birthright for a mess of pottage, a 
crown for a cloister, or a kingdom for a 
glass of water! what are these to a rash sur- 
render of all those hopes which give vi. 
gour and expansion to the heart, for a trea- 
sure on earthf or a dream which has all the 
inquietude without the refreshment of sleep, 
or the tyrant's feast, which, after a world of 
ceremony and preparation, proved but a ser- 
vice of wax, and, quickly dissolving, left 
the guests more hungry than it found them ; 
or the impostor's nostrum, which he boast- 
ed contained the essence of all true felicity, 
though it disclosed, when opened, nothing 
but wind! 

O Death, how shocking must thy summons be 
To all who are at ease in their possessions, 
And, counting on long- years of pleasure here, 
Are quite unfurnish'd for the world to come ! 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 247 



CAUTIONS, 

For all these reasons, and all that reason 
and religion can urge, if riches increase^ set 
7iot your hearts upon them* Keep aloof 
from whatever would solicit or win your af- 
fections, but God and a good conscience. 
Think on the rich fool in the gospel, and 
take warning from his destiny. He had 
got what he wished, resolved on no new 
project, but seemed content and resigned 
to manage and enjoy the fruits of his la- 
bour. How sanguine and short his hopes 
of indulgence ! Thus it is that worldly 
minds usurp the prerogative of Heaven, and 
presume on a futurity wholly in the dispor 
sal of God. And it often happens to them 
as it did to him ; in the very moment of 
their expecting a fall reward for all their 
toll, their fite is denounced : Thou fool, this 
night shall thy soul shall be required of thee* 

The time hastens and is at hand, when 
all the w^ealth of all worlds, thou "h at vour 



248 EMPTINESS OJ* 

command, would serve you in no stead. 
Do you wish in that serious crisis for no 
other source of relief, no other succour, no 
other happiness than riches confer ? Can 
you think of resisting the ills of life^ grap- 
jpling with affliction, lying down on a death 
bed, or encountering the king of terrors, 
with no better principles than those by 
which you have made a fortune, establish- 
ed a family, or raised a name ? Alas ! all 
your pecuniary acquisitions, be they ever 
iso extensive, will then but make you poor 
indeed ! Millions, in settling your final 
account, will stand but for cyphers. What 
can all those things, you are now so proud 
and elated with, so anxious about, so loath 
to leave, and yet so unable to keep, avail, 
when the appetites they created and kept 
alive are extinct ? 

Be not therefore dupes to the deceitful- 
ness of wealth. It is a kind of a spiritual 
opium, which may lull you, as it has done 
thousands, into a state of the most fatal se- 
^curity. We are never in so much danger 
of its sorcery as when least apprehensive ! 



EARTHLY TREASURES. 249 

Sisera fast asleep, Pharaoh in his chariot, 
Belshazzar in his bowls, Haman at the ban- 
quet, and Herod in his robes, were confi- 
dent and fearless, but they were not safe. 
Like silly birds, they perched and enjoyed 
themselves on the top of the tree, at the mo- 
ment the fowler levelled his piece and 
brought them to the ground. 

Ants are never busier depositing red and 
yellow earth, than when the feet of the pas- 
sengers crush them to death by millions ! 

No fish are more lively, alert, and joyous, 
than those little beautiful and shining ones, 
which are seen gliding and frisking in 
shoals down the silver streams of Jordan, 
and plunging in the Dead Sea, where they 
perish ! 

Open your hearts then to the exhortation, 
and lay up for yourselves treasures in Hea- 
ven^ where neither moth nor rust do corrupt^ 
and where thieves do not break through not 
steaL 



250 



AFFLICTIONS. 



Pains of body and anguish of mind 
are the inheritance and condition of every 
human being. From these no mortal situ- 
ation affords any exemption : the monarch's 
palace is no better security than the peasant's 
cottage ! This world exhibits no state or 
scene in which good and evil are not cou- 
pled together ; no species of prosperity 
wholly unmingled with adversity. Every 
vale we traverse, and every hill we ascend, 
present us with an aspect alternately bright 
and black. It is certainly not here, what- 
ever our fond and foolish hearts, warmed 
and fascinated by illusive and visionary 
pleasures, may surmise, that perfect exemp- 



AFFLICTIONS. 251 

tion from trial, or trouble, or suffering, or 
sorrow can possibly be realized. 

To support our hearts, and animate our 
minds, under all the vicissitudes of a con- 
tingent state, and arm us with courage and 
constancy for enduring the changes and chan- 
ces, to which, in our persons, fortunes, 
feelings, and connexions, we are inevitably 
and invariably exposed, it is absolutely ne- 
cessary that we have fixed and rooted in 
our minds the genuine principles of faith, 
of peace, and of comfort. We must other- 
wise be in a state of fearful uncertainty and 
suspense, even where our all is at stake. 
And who can enjoy the least ease or quiet, 
without full satisfaction, in a crisis big with 
everlasting happiness or misery ? 

To this important object nothing is equal 
but the settled conviction, that there is a 
just and good Providence governing the 
world, that all our afflictions are laid upon 
us according to the rules of unerring Wis- 
dom, and that the worst that can betide us, 
in a life of error and mischance, originates 
in the paternal tenderness of Heaven, is oc- 



252 AFFLICTIONS. 

casioned by the perverseness of our natures, 
and terminates in our eternal welfare. Sta- 
tioned on this rock, we may regard with 
perfect tranquillity whatever can happen. 
While the eternal God is our refuge^ and un- 
derneath us are his everlasting arms, the 
thunder may roll and gi'owl above our 
heads in the most awful explosions, the light- 
nings may flash with accelerated velocity be- 
fore our eyes, the tides may swell beyond 
their usual boundaries, and the tempest may 
exhaust its fury on every prospect that 
charms the eye! The certainty that there 
is a God, that the management of all things 
is in his hand, that we are kept by his al- 
mighty power, that nothing can aiFect us 
but by his permission, and that we are dear- 
er in his sight than children in that of their 
parents, is the great anchor of our souls 
which preserves them sure and stedfast^ 
when the billows are most threatening and 
the winds most fierce. Faith or trust in 
the benignant Principle that rules, pervades, 
upholds, animates, warms, and cherishes all 
things, will resolve every doubt, silence eve. 



AFFLICTIONS. ' 253 

iy suggestion, quash every fear, and com- 
pose our spirits, in sweet serenity under 
every misfortune. 

Men, indeed, sometimes exhibit an asto- 
nishing degree of exterior decency, or appa- 
rent staidness and composure under severe 
afflictions, from very different, and often 
enough, perlaaps, from very bad principles. 
How many, from an insensibility of heart, 
natural to some constitutions, from a stoical 
pride or obstinacy that scorns to be deemed 
an object of pity, or from vain glory to at- 
tract the applause and admiration of the 
world, affect, under circumstances of consi- 
derable distress, to be easy and uncon- 
cerned. 

These causes, however, will not be found 
competent support in every extremity. 
There are a thousand shocks^ wlnoh flesh is 
heir to^ that require relief far superior to ^ 
any that nature can afford. The virtues of 
patience, courage, and magnanimity, which 
religion inspires and keeps alive and strong 
and active, can alone enable the mind to 

7, 



254 AFFLICTIONS. 

resist successfully every pressure or weight 
of incumbent sorrow. 

That holy confidence, which has for its 
basis the stability of the .divine govern- 
ment, and no other, is adequate to the tri- 
al9<ind struggles of life. It is built upon a 
rock which no tempests can shake! Its 
foundations are eternal and immoveable! 
Its prospects are certain and immortal ! 
The good man's hope, far from depending 
upon self-presumption, imaginary excel- 
lence, or emotions of affection, is grounded 
Upon the assurance that he hath, of his being 
in the hands, and at the disposal, of a just 
and merciful Creator, who judgeth right- 
eously, and punisheth mercifully, and both 
equally for the good of his creatures. He 
never corrects but with infinite reluctance 
and compassion, and his anger is that of a 
tender-hearted father, rather grieved for the 
misfortunes than the revolt of his children. 
Trials, calamities^ and mortifications, are 
the fruits of his kindness and attention, and 
not so much intended to punish our disor- 
ders, as to make us sensible of their conse- 



AFFLICTIONS. 255 

quence, to bring us to repentance, and to 
inspire us with confidence in his goodness. 

He would be a cruel God, indeed, if he 
left us to enjoy undisturbed the product of 
our crimes, or arranged our concerns in 
such a manner as to protect us from every 
species of trouble or molestation in the in- 
dulgence of our guilty pleasures. These 
inattentions to our welfare would in fact be 
the most awful and alarm ins: indications of 
his dereliction and wrath. But when he 
sows with thorns the road which we foolish- 
ly diought bestrewed with roses, we per- 
ceive our folly in flying from religion and 
holiness as troublesome and difficult, since 
the ways of sin are so much more unplea- 
sant and painful. 

Indeed, it is no part of his paternal disci- 
pline to strike but w^hen he means to try 
our faith, to correct our failings, to purify 
our natures, and to perfect our virtues. 
But these sufferings, or affiictions of a mo- 
7n€Jity which we bear at present, are greatly 
, meliorated by the secret consolations of his 
good Spirit, and serve to render us more 



256 AFFLICTIONS* 

worthy of that eternal weight of glory re- 
served for us in a life to come. 

Consideration is absolutely necessary in 
every proper, dutiful, or great action. It 
is for want of mature and deliberate atten- 
tion, than men are betrayed into so many 
errors and miscarriages, and that they often 
rush headlong on the snares and embar- 
rassments of vice and folly, They do not 
wisely inquire into the true nature and real 
value of things, Vv'hat substantial comforts 
Littend on virtue, what stings of remorse 
follow vice, how glorious the rewards of the 
one, and how severe the punishments of the 
other, must ultimately be. 

Such extreme inattention, to matters of 
so much importance, can only result from 
the intoxications of prosperity. This is the 
fatal illusion that blinds, bewilders, and 
ruins our race by millions ! However dearly 
we love, however eagerly w^e pursue it, we 
iind it not so frequently a friend as an ene- 
my, who, instead of realizing the felicities it 
promises, is a fruitful source of uneasiness 
and anguish. It naturally unbends the 



AFFLICTIONS. 257 

mind, and relaxes all its powers. It pre- 
vents the thoughts from settling on any se- 
rious object, and swells imagination with 
vanity and self-conceit. It seldom im- 
proves the good, and always makes the bad 
worse. Have not the wisest men, from a 
long flow of health and, success, exposed 
themselves to contempt and infamy by 
plunging into vice and folly ? How many, 
by a run of unexpected good fortune, for- 
get that they are men, and, proud of their 
wealth, conceive themselves possessed of 
superior natures to those beneath them 1 

Adversity sets all these irregularities 
right, by bringing us to ourselves, sum- 
moning up our recollection, reducing our 
feelings to temperance, allaying the ferment 
of the passions, and conducting the opera- 
tions of the understanding and the heart 
with coolness and discretion. 

The tendency of the two states in opposi- 
tion to each other, is, that as much liberty 
as we usually take in prosperity, as fantasti- 
cally gay and as regardless as Vv^e are of our 

z 2 ' ^ 



25S AF^LlCtlONS. 

duty, so much in adversity will our wander-* 
ing thoughts be fixed, and our minds dispos- 
ed to serious consideration* The turbu- 
lent noise of passion is then abated, and 
yields to the calm expostulations of reason, 
rhe cause of virtue may consequently be 
tried with fairness, and the follies of vice 
condemned with justice* We perceive, at 
the same time, that sin is not innocent, that 
an abused conscience is no jest, that religion 
is real, that profaneness is madness, and in- 
fidelity distraction, and that our only refuge^ 
our greatest comfort, our truest interest is 
in serving God, and saving our souls. 

Affliction also makes men gentle, and 
tractable, and susceptible gf that instruc- 
tion and advice, which, in better circum- 
stances, they depreciate and disdain. We 
naturally cry for help when sensible of 
weakness, and receive that with thankful- 
ness from others, which we are convinced is 
wanting in ourselves. By these means, the 
bad are often recovered to a sound mind, 
and even the good from the errors of their 
ways. Indeed, christians only knov/ the 



AFFLICTIONS. 259 

proper use of trials. They regard them as 
feithful monitors, to caution them against 
their frailties, to assist them in examining 
their conduct, and to excite to greater dili- 
gence in duty. Afflictions are so pecu- 
liarly adapted for repressing whatever is 
frothy in our natures and manners, that the 
case, where they fail to produce humility 
and moderation, must be desperate. Pride, 
surmounting the most effectual means to re- 
duce it, is the sign of such an obdurate and 
profligate temper, as religion itself can have 
but faint hopes of recovering. It is not 
usual for God to work miracles for convinc- 
ing us of our folly. But affliction is his 
work, his strange xvork^ and sufficient to 
awaken us if we will be awakened. It 
must be owned that nature in such cases is 
but too apt to act the hypocrite, and, though 
driven to repentance by misfortune, will 
basely relapse by the least countenance from 
prosperity. Still afflictions do their part 
faithfully, and their failing at anv time of 
their natural effect, is only a proof that men 
will [>ersist in foily against the fairest oppor- 



260 AFFLICTIONS. 

tunities of learning wisdom, and prefer the 
greatest misery to the greatest happiness, 
even where both are equally in their option. 
Let us resolve to bear our tribulations 
patiently, from the consideration of their 
utility and the goodness that inflicts them. 
Infinite power, without being tempered by 
justice, would be so terrible, that, to behold 
it, even innocence might tremble ; but the 
power and justice of God are inseparable, 
and nothing can be done by the one, but in 
unison with the other. So that whatever 
the Almighty does must be done in truth 
and equity. And were our afflictions much 
heavier than they are, they would still be 
an instance of the kindness and forbearance 
of Heaven. What have the most destitute 
and distressed among the children of men 
at any time or in any manner endured, 
which has not by folly, imprudence, or 
impiety, been incurred ? And how many 
good things do the worst, notwithstanding 
their demerit, still enjoy ? Whence then 
our incessant murmurings and complaints, 
who deserve so little and possess so much ? 



AFFLICTIONS. 261 

Is it not the height of ingratitude to charge 
his conduct to his creatures, which is full 
of benignity and mercy, with all those op- 
pressions which virtue, and all those inju- 
ries which innocence, are doomed to en- 
counter from the unavoidable collisions in 
human society ? Does it become creatures 
so made, so situated, so frail in body and 
mind, and at the same time so obnoxious 
as we are to the consequences of guilt and 
folly, to be thus dissatisfied while only per- 
mitted to live, much less v/hile v/e even 
enjoy, with the trivial abatement of a few 
transitory afflictions, the manifold blessings 
of God. 

But when affliction visits us, as it visits 
all, we regard the dispensation of Provi- 
dence, for the most part, with such a brut- 
ish Ignorance as not to understand, or with 
such a perversion of heart as not to acknow- 
ledge, its justice, expediency, or necessity. 
We are not careful to satisfy ourselves of 
the measures, that affect us. We cast about 
us on every side for pretences, and even 
blame and blaspheme Heaven, rather than 



262 AFPLICTIONS. 

look into our own hearts for the fountain 
whence all our calamities flow. A heathen 
moralist, in addressing himself to God, 
could say, '* I will defend thee against all 
*' the world, I maintain that all is good ^ 
** because thou art good J^"*- Surely our re- 
ligion is but very superficial if we are out- 
done by pagans in the patience it prescribes, 
if it does not raise us to greater perfection 
than they attained, if it does not inspire us 
with more awful reverence for the wisdom 
of Providence, than they had ; and if it does 
not make us acknowledge cheerfully that 
we are unfit to be abandoned to our own 
humour, that we cannot tell with what pain 
'we should be corrected, or with w^hat trou- 
bles exercised, but that we are always best 
and safest in his care and keeping, whose 
wisdom cannot err. 

Thus, by cultivating sentiments of habi- 
tual submission to the wise arrangements 
of Providence, we shall be enabled to trace 
all our disasters to their proper source, to 
clear the divine government of such asper- 
sions as are thrown out against it, by our 



AFFLICTIONS. 263 

peevishness and impatience ; while smart- 
ing under a rod so necessary for our cor- 
rection, in our hardest circumstances, per-- 
ceive much indulgence, and be seriously 
convinced, that our cup is never embittered 
but with the kindest intention to weaken 
the strength of corruption, repress the im- 
portunity of passion, to moderate our anx- 
iety for the body, and to promote the health 
of our souls. And amidst all that is un- 
pleasant, during the whole of our brief span 
of misery in this world of sorrow, painful to 
sense, or distressing to reason, mercy still 
rejoiceth over judgment, and all our crosses, 
of whatever kind or degree, as well as every 
blessing we enjoy, are calculated to advance 
both our present and eternal interest. 

In proportion as our conviction of these 
truths is genuine, we cannot be abandoned 
of consolation. When misfortunes break 
in upon our ease, and, at one stroke, annihi- 
late our credit and blast our hopes; when 
malice robs us of our quiet, and poisons, as 
it often does, all the blessings of life; when 
envy disappoints us of an honest fame, o|* in- 



264 AFFLICTIONS. 

justice bereaves us of our property; when 
groups of sorrows press upon our hearts, 
and scare away our comforts ; when disease j 
spoils us of our health, or death deprives us 
of our friends; the promises of religion will 
brighten up our hopes of immortaUty, and 
preserve our souls in that divine serenity 
and peace which passeth all understanding. 
Our light afflictions, however various and 
accumulated, shall then vanish like the 
dream of the night. We shall behold even 
death advance without trepidation or dis- 
may ; that death which makes the stoutest 
sinner quake, but which, to the good, is on- 
ly a sweet sle^p. Our ashes will rest in the 
quiet grave waiting for the day of light and 
revelation. 

When this day of eternal and complete 
redemption dawns and bursts upon us, deli- 
vered for ever from the thraldom of dark-^ 
ness and mortality, we shall behold and en- 
joy that morn to which no evening succeeds. 
Then all our pains and sorrows and sighs 
shall flee away. The sacred and divine 
joys which shall then be revealed, will hard- 



AFFLICTIONS. 265 

\y leave the least remembrance of all the ills 
we bore, or the tears we shed; or if we barely 
remember them, it will only be to thank 
our heavenly Father, who, by these kind 
and holy corrections, sanctified our na- 
tures, refined our virtues, and rev/arded our 
transient tribulations with glory, honour, 
immortality, and eternal life. 



A a 



260 



PATIENCE 



When the capricious cruelty of 

Henry the eighth brought the lady Ann Boy- 

len to the block, she is said to have desired, 

with her dying breath, that this message 

might be delivered to him: '* Present my 

' duty and my love to the king, and tell 

' him how much this last favour exceeds 

' all his former ones. Of a private gentle- 

* woman he made me a marchioness, of a 
' marchioness a queen, and now that the 

* royal bounty is exhausted, he makes me 
' a martyr. Having no higher title for me 
^ on earth, he sends me to be a saint in 

* heaven." 

Such was the magnanimity of christian 
patience amidst all the outrage of tt'ium- 
phant oppression, by one of the feebler sex. 



PATIENCE. 267 

and with all the bloody apparatus of an im- 
mediate and barbarous death in view. It 
communicated additional vigour and ani- 
mation to virtue, in proportion to the exer- 
tions which threatened its final extinction. 
It shed a lustre on departing worth, which 
will shine with increasing brightness while 
sun and moon endure. By the divinity of 
patience, the whole was changed from a 
scene of horror to a source of hope, punish- 
ment became preferment, persecution was 
deemed an honour, misery was but another 
name for the highest dignity, and the infamy 
of a public execution seemed only a pre- 
lude to all the joys and glories of the hea- 
venly world. 



DEFINED. 

It may not be easy to give such a defini- 
tion of patience as will suit the opposite 
views, opinions, and feelings of individuals. 
It includes whatever, in the minds and man- 
ners of men, the best principles can effect, 



268 PATIENCE. 

or the soundest experience attest. And 
who would not eagerly cultivate such an 
equanimity of temper, such a harmony of 
soul, such a dignity and independence of 
sentiment, as proceeds from the purest 
cause, operates under the holiest sanction, 
and is directed to the best ends ? An en- 
lightened mind and a virtuous heart, pas- 
sions moderated by reason, and appetites 
habitually controuled by a correct sense of 
right and wrong, an aptitude for the regular 
discharge of duty, and a resolution of in- 
variably resisting whatever impels to vice 
or relaxes the tone of virtue, are qualities 
imbibed and matured only under the tuition, 
and thrive no where but in the vicinity, of 
patience. 

This glorious arid essential attribute of 
substantial worth does not consist in an in- 
sensibility to present evil, or an indifference 
to future good, but in that happy and placid 
frame of spirit, which supports with forti- 
tude whatever cannot be prevented by pru- 
dence, and looks forward to the accomplish- 
ment of hope, with a confidence not prompt- 



PATIENCE. 269 

cd by presumption, but grafted on humility. 
It is one of the sweetest fruits of the tree of 
life, which grows in the midst of the para- 
dise of God I 

See what a figure it makes, what a value 
it bears in the oracles of truth ! It blooms 
and flourishes with a richer lustre than any 
other plant or flower in those gardens which 
the Lord hath watered. The great pattern 
of all excellence even sanctions and recom- 
mends patience by his own amiable and di- 
vine example. 

What a heavenly charm does not this 
mild and majestic principle difl'use over 
every part of his life, who was uniformly 
meek and lowly in heart! When smitten 
at once by God and man, and in the very 
instant of enduring the wrath of both, he 
betrayed not the least symptom of resent- 
ment, nor uttered one word unadvisedly 
with his lips. He was led forth as a lamb 
to the slaughter, and, without hesitation or 
reluctance, resigned himself into the hands 
of bloody and deceitful men. Even as a 
sheep before her shearers, he was dumb and 
A a 2 



270 PATIENCE. 

opened not his mouth ! So collected, illus- 
trious, and commanding* did his conduct 
appear both in the garden and on the cross, 
that it is not easy to say whether his inno- 
cence or his patience were the most con- 
spicuous or majestic. It even seemed to 
gather strength from his weakness, and to 
rise in splendor as he sunk in abasement. 
By the spirit of what he taught, by the in- 
fluence of what he did, and by a holy con- 
fidence in his promised presence, what hosts 
of saints and martyrs, in all ages, have 
throughjaith and patience inherited the pro^ 
mises. And the same humble dependence 
on the blessing of God, the love of Christ, 
and the grace of the Holy Ghost, still con- 
tinues to bring many sons and daughters to 
glory. 

Patience is coupled with faith, and hope, 
and joy, and takes the lead in fulfilling some 
of our most difficult and indispensable ob- 
ligations. It is not so properly any one 
specific grace, as that peculiar and predo- 
minatiuff habit of mind which maintains a 
general influence over all. It is the pledge 



PATIENCE. 271 

of duty under the pressure of affliction, the 
anchor of the soul under the delay of hope, 
and better than all when forsaken of all. 

Patience triumphs as a queen among the 
virtues ; piety is her palace, her throne the 
heart; contentment, humility, and perfec- 
tion constitute her triple crown of glory, 
honour, and immortality. Hers is a king- 
dom of peace, a court of holiness, and a go- 
vernment of reason. Her subjects are the 
human passions, her laws the dictates of 
equity, her armies the graces of the Spirit. 
With one hand she points to the school of 
experience, and widi the other she wields 
the sceptre of wisdom. The law of kind- 
ness hangs on her tongue, and gentleness 
and love are the ministers of her reign. 



AN APOLOGUE. 

A society of cynics or misanthropes, says 
the apologue, having, on a time, assembled 
in solemn congress, began a serious consul- 



272 PATIENCE. 

tation how the world might be managed to 
their minds. 

One was ever bewailing, with tears and la- 
mentations, the disorders which every 
where prevailed ; another as heartily divert- 
ed himself with the various absurdities 
which constantly pressed upon his view; 
and a third, with equal sagacity and imperti- 
nence, was always most busy where he had 
least thanks. All arraigned the present 
system of things, and each extolled their 
respective plans for effecting what they con- 
ceived a better arrangement. Princes were 
implored, politicians sounded, divines con- 
sulted, philosophers found out, and physi- 
cians called in, and all the eminent, in all 
professions, convened, and the difficulty in 
question submitted to their joint discussion. 
But the more they projected to quash the 
troubles of life, the more troublesome life 
became. Every one naturally preferred his 
own expedient, and the chief object of the 
meeting eventually gave way to the humour 
of crossing one another. Some would 
have all wet, some all drv; some all sun, 



PATIENCE. 273 

others all shade ; many were for peace, and 
more for war. In this manner hope was ab- 
sorbed in anxiety, and the evil wliich all 
wished removed, all only helped to increase. 
It was now that Religion, in the character of 
a heavenly instructor, interposed and offer- 
ed her advice. It consisted in one word, 
PATIENCE, and that word operated like ma- 
gic. It forthwith brought these maniacs to 
their senses, repressed the petulance of their 
natures, assuaged their noisy clamours, mul- 
tiplied the checks of passion, strengthened 
the influence of sobriety and moderation, 
gave additional nerve to reason, and im- 
proved the authority of conscience. 

Under all the calamities and trials of our 
present painful and disastrous condition, 
let us have recourse to the same remedv, 
and we shall soon experience such a change 
for the better in our own tempers and feel- 
ings as cannot but reconcile us to whatever 
is the will of divine Providence. Thiis 
happily armed and shielded, no imperfec- 
tions of others or our own, no troubles with- 
out or within, no discouragement in the ser- 



274 PATIENCE. 

vice of God, no disappointment, distance, or 
delay in the objects of our hopes, can great- 
ly disquiet or molest us. But without pa- 
tience it will always be in the power of the 
weakest and most worthless of our fello^v- 
creatures, in every awkward or disagreeable 
circumstance connected with duty, in 
whatever postpones the reward of well do- 
ing, to disturb our comfort, ruffle our tem- 
pers, or make us miserable. 



ILL HUMOUll. 

Most of tlie disagreeable contingencies of 
life have their origin in the stupidity, the 
folly, and the negligence of those with 
whom we are eonnected, or on whose ser- 
vices, kindness, or integrity we may de- 
pend. And we often enough relax in cau- 
tion from an excess of confidence in their 
accuracy or honour. We thus give them 
credit for such kinds and degrees of virtue 
as the consequence proves they do not de- 
serve. And many of the cross and adverse 



PATIENCE. 275 

accidents, which happen to us individually, 
are even the worse to bear, that in general 
they are so little foreseen. We have, there- 
fore, extreme need of patience for the pur- 
pose of establishing that serenity of soul 
and equanimity of temper which arise from 
the heedlessness, the levity, or want of at- 
tention, in such as ai*e objects of trust in 
whatever concerns our duty, our interest, or 
our honour. 

While we live m a wicked, ill-natured 
world, the best good humour, the humblest 
innocence, or even the most unimpeacliable 
virtue, will not always secure us the kind- 
est usage. Who is not irritated or provok- 
ed by the virulence of malicious report, by 
the iron grasp of injustice and oppression, 
by the doublings of fraud and dissimulation, 
by the ruthless ravages of cruelty, or by the 
dull and cold recollections of ingratitude ? 
In this promiscuous scene it w^ould be want 
of sense as w^ell as of patience, not to lay 
our account with manifold excitements to 
unusual warmth of temper. And it is as 
much our duty to cultivate habits of apathy 



276 PATIENCE. 

in the prospect of such treatment, as to 
make provision for the regular returns of 
appetite* 

Patience will teach us in many cases to 
regard the follies of life with indifference, 
and in not a few to contemplate their con- 
sequences with pity and commiseration. 
What aspect of human life does not exhibit 
the insanity of the multitude, their want of 
thought, their want of principle, their want 
of feeling, and their want of decency, in 
a light the most palpable and affecting ! It 
is here chiefly, in this vast hospital of diseas- 
ed minds, this whirl of distraction, this aw- 
ful and mysterious scene of multifarious 
madness, that patience has its perfect work* 

See what an astonishing succession of 
heterogeneous character crowd and discri- 
minate the various walks of life ! Wherever 
the eye ranges, inclination leads, curiosity 
pries, or interest calls, in town or country, 
at home or abroad, the prospect is loaded, 
and groups of our fellow- creatures, all dis- 
tinguished by some predominating feature 
of mind, body, or estate, swarm before us 



PATIENCE. 277 

intercept our views, or interfere with our 
pleasures or pursuits. A large majority of 
these, indeed, are immured in the servile 
duties of laborious industry, and, like a 
slow majestic river, Along the cool seques- 
tered Vale of life still keep the noiseless tenor 
of their way. 

It is not the invidious and growling, but 
the sinister and usurping, passions, which 
embroil society most, and afford to patience 
and forbearance the severest exercise. Ex- 
treme insignificance, that indelible badge 
of mental debility, unless when associated 
by affectation or impudence, is but very 
little interesting. The good and ill of such 
neutral beings are as harmless and inoffen- 
sive to the manly or the wise, as the hum 
or buz of the most trivial insects. Vanity 
seldom obtrudes on our quiet but at the in- 
stigation of some baser impulse ; and we 
are only deranged by its assumptions, when- 
their obvious tendency is to lessen us in the 
good opinion of ourselves or others. 

How many do we not often meet with, 
so full of self-conceit, so faultless in their 

Bb 



278 PATIENCE. 

own eyes, as to see nothing valuable in any 
but themselves! This oddity is the more 
unpleasant from the petulant and testy hu- 
mour, with which it is generally connected. 
Nothing more infallibly produces the worst 
species of pride, than a vain head under the 
management of a bad heart. . This ulce- 
rates the whole character, and makes num- 
bers so sore, so touchy, and so peevish, as 
to be utterly incapable of counsel, admoni- 
tion, or reform. And what mortal perfec- 
tion can sufficiently atone or apologize for 
such a temper ? The softest word, the 
gentlest hint, the best meant advice, and 
tendered in the meekest terms, only irritates 
and inflames. Persons constituted of such 
combustible materials, like angry clouds, 
seldom meet without occasioning a storm. 
Others are of so preposterous a disposi- 
tion, as to be always busiest where they 
have least, and never so remiss as where 
they have most interest. Some place all 
their happiness in assuming an imperious 
and dictatorial consequence, and are always 
betraying the impotence of a pragmatical 



PATIENCE. 279 

spirit, in such a tone of serious arrogance, 
as raises only levity or contempt. 

Of all the disturbers of society, hatchers 
and hawkers of scandal are the most credu- 
lous, the most impertinent, the most censo- 
rious, and the most mischievous. There is 
not in nature any thing so black or so ve*^ 
nomous as the tongue of an incendiary. 
The apothecary or chemist, who vends and 
disseminates poisons gratis, is harmless in 
comparison of such a monster! What ia 
the quiet of families, the peace of innocence, 
the credit of a good name, or the honour of 
the greatest worth, to minds who have no 
pleasure but in the murder of reputation ? 

Such are only some of the many and 
nameless characters who, in the strange 
evolutions of life, force themselves on our 
notice, thwart our attachments, or cross our 
wishes, and with whom it may be our mis- 
fortune occasionally to associate. Aban- 
doned of patience, under these circumstan- 
ces, our conduct must be equally displease 
ing to ourselves and others. Patience is as 



280 PATIENCE. 

indispensable here as the soldier's armour i» 
the field of battle. 

Why hath nature replenished our hearts 
with feelings or sentiments corresponding 
to whatever occupies our understandings or 
our senses ? Nothing comes under the cog- 
nizance of either without creating a certain 
degree of aversion or dislike, conciliating 
esteem or provoking ridicule, commanding 
respect or exciting contempt, and which 
dees not unavGidabiy become an object of 
love or abhorrence. This natural and beau- 
tiful system of moral sentiment would bp 
instantly and irreparably deranged, but for 
the seasonable interference and gentle offi- 
ces of patience. By thus improving and 
upholding the subordination established 
among our various powers, a suitable pro- 
vision is made for the regular discharge of 
their several functions; and patience main- 
tains the samxC influence among them, thaj 
gravitation does in nature. It prevents an 
improper application of sentiment, tempers 
all our resentments, raises us above the little 
insidious stratagems of the peevish and mali- 



PATIENCE. 281 

cious, places us at a distance from the self- 
ish, the crabbed, and the morose, renders us 
superior to the contumelies of the worth- 
less, shields us from the arrows of slander, 
or makes them fall pointless at our feet, and 
teaches us the divine lesson of forgiving ra- 
ther than retaliating injuries. 

Patience is the virtue of cultivated talent, . 
an open nature, and a temper constitutionally- 
warm, but corrected b)^ experience and im- 
proved by principle. It seldom associates 
but with that true simplicity of deportment, 
which both indicates happiness and imparts 
it. It is the constant inmate of good na- 
ture, and the parent of complaisance, affabi- 
lity, charity, lowliness of mind, and tender- 
ness of heart. 

Who has not an interest in the welfare, the 
intercourse, and the good graces of this 
kind, conciliating family? How blessed 
should we all be in all our actions, and all our 
tionnections, were these preferred in all our 
societies, all our select parties of pleasure, 
and all our circles of gaiety ! This world of 
ours would then be the holiest, happiest^. 

Bb2 



282 PATIENCE. 

and best of all worlds; the interest of all 
would be thiat of every one, and the interest 
of every one that of all. Men would be as 
the angels of God; the virtues as much in, as 
they are now out of fashion ; life only filled 
by innocence and love, and something like 
heaven actually enjoyed on earth. 



/ TROUBLE. 

Our greatest plagues are our own hearts. 
Earthquakes, and all the most furious con- 
vulsions which, from time immemorial, 
have torn and perturbed the bowels of our 
glgbe, are occasioned not by winds without 
but within. In like manner, our severest 
sufferings arise from no external evil, but 
have their source in the peevish and undis- 
ciplined temper of our mind and passions. 
It is this which poisons all our enjoyments, 
darkens all our prospects, incapacitates ouf 
hearts for happiness, and imbitters our lives 
with sorrow. Our frailties render us fret- 
ful, our crosses querulous, our fears irreso- 



PATIENCE. 283 

lute, and our griefs unmanly. How mor- 
tifying and depressive that consciousness 
of imperfection which adheres to all our ac- 
tions, and even renders the best unprofit- 
able. Indeed, there is nothing to be seen 
within ourselves, nothing we can do, no- 
thing of our own, which is not c^culated 
to terrify and perplex. 

Happily, when reduced to the situation 
of a man labouring under a burden which he 
cannot bear, patience will be found our sure 
relief, calm, and moderate, and soothe, our 
angriest passions, and file down all such as- 
perities of temper as originate in the rubs to 
which our present circumstances expose us. 
In this sense especially, patience uniformly 
proves itself the best medicine to a mind 
diseased, and operates like those intestine 
springs which are of a healing nature, and 
communicate their virtues to whatever oc- 
cupies the vicinity of the spot that produces 
\hem. Thus it is with patience : the 
heart it inhabits is never disturbed, but of- 
ten blessed with tranquillity in scenes of tu- 
mult and confusion. The mountain's 



284 PATIENCE. 

brow, whose sun -shine is never shaded by 
the blackest tempest that exhausts its fury 
in the valley below, is a just image of the 
soul exalted, by this divine principle, above 
all the shocks of pain and misfortune. 

Some are constitutionally more placid 
and apathetic than others. There is a dig-' 
nity, a serenity, and an ease, in such well 
formed minds, which no discipline can im- 
part, no diligence acquire. But as all inhe- 
rit the same corrupt natures, and feel the 
same imbecilities, all have the seeds of the 
same turbulent and perverse dispositions in 
a more or less degree ; and without patience 
these restive propensities, like some fearful 
eruptions in the material world, inevitably 
break out in the most mischievous and aw- 
ful enormities. What have not mankind 
suffered, from the violence of heady and 
headstrong passions, in rulers of nations and 
generals of armies ? In a state of absolute 
exemption from check or controul, without 
or within, it is impossible for any human be- 
ing to be staid or temperate, or wise or 
good. The very thoughts of a place above 



PATIENCE. 285 

all, where all have the same beginning and 
the same end, and, in all important respects, 
are upon a footing of precise equality, 
makes one's head turn round! It is fit 
only for God, and none but such as have 
the daring impiety to rival or dispute his su- 
premacy would wish to trample in this man- 
ner on the necks of his creatures. 

Examine the character and conduct of all 
the monsters, whom the blind infatuated 
multitude have made their masters, since 
the beginning of the world, and learn from 
their criminal temerity the value and utility 
of patience. What but the energy of this 
sacred virtue, the power of religion, and the 
grace of God, preserve each of us from all 
those foul practices and gross outrages 
which blacken the life of man, and origin- 
ate in lawless appetite? They know at 
least but little of their own hearts, who have 
no consciousness of any such base instiga- 
tions. These, alas! are common to the 
best and worst of the species; and all the 
difference is, that the former check and the 
latter indulge them. 



286 PATIENCE. 

Our natures are likewise impregnated by 
the germ of virtue, which often warms and 
shoots into such pure suggestions as often 
impel even the worthless to actions of a laud- 
able tendency. It is matter of sincere re- 
gret to the feeling and liberal, that they 
have it not always in their power to sub- 
stantiate their best inclinations And sel- 
dom is an impulse of humanity suppressed 
or neglected, which they do not consider as 
an opportunity lost of doing good. 

Happy for us all, were these the only 
frailties we felt, or which rendered us de- 
pendent on the kind influence of a patient 
temper. But who that looks into his* own 
mind, or examines impartially the state and 
workings of his affections and passions, has 
not to bewail an evil heart of unbelief dis- 
trust of God, dissatisfaction with his pro- 
vidence, ingratitude for his mercies, inat- 
tention to the operations of his hand, con- 
tempt for the blessings of his gospel, and a 
habitual striving against the motions of his 
spirit? 



PATIENCE. 287 

O, Patience, it is thy prerogative to make 
us at peace with ourselves ! But for thee, 
like some creatures of mishapen form, we 
could not bear our own likeness. And, in 
imitation of the divine and long-suffering 
goodness of God, thou canst work us by 
slow, and soft, and sure, degrees, into a 
habit of commiseration for debilities and de- 
formities we cannot remove. 

Afflictions, which are the lot of humanity, 
produce all those salutary effects on our na- 
tures and our hearts, for which they ai'e in- 
tended, and sanctified only by the minis- 
try of patience. It is the will of Heaven that 
our virtues should be tried, that we should 
pass this great established ordeal, that we 
should prove our legitimacy, that we should 
make good our claim to the family of God, 
and that we should, especially in this res- 
pect, be fashioned and transformed into the 
image of his Son. Indeed there are few 
qualities of great popularity peculiar to the 
christian life, or even essential to human 
happiness, not owing in some degree to sa- 
lutary correction. All our excellence must 



288 PATIENCE* 

be acquired ; all our endowments suppose 
diligence and labour ; and we have no vir- 
tues, which are not the offspring of resolu- 
tion and self-denial. It is by the habits of 
mortification, by inflexibly resisting the 
pruriency of passion, by such contingencies 
as are incident to a state of trial, by crosses 
unavoidable to creatures susceptible of pain 
and vexation in every part of their frame, 
that we are ultimately prepared for partici- 
pating in the joyous provisions of eternity. 
Through this thorny and rugged path, all 
the children of God, in all ages of the world, 
patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, 
have uniformly travelled. The gate is still 
as strait, and the way as narrow to Heaven 
for us, as it was for them. And, to profit 
effectually by their example, we must sub- 
mit to the same vexatious repulses, grapple 
with the same hardships, carry the same 
burthens, endure the same temptations, and 
smart under the same sufferings, both of 
body and mind, in some measure, which 
they did. Chastisement is as useful to the 
perverse as meat to the hungry, or medicine 



PATIENCE. 289 

to the sick. Such is the discipline by 
which our moral and spiritual tuition is car- 
ried on and completed. We are instructed 
by experience, refined by correction, and 
humanized by the asperities of misfortune. 

Diseases of body, inquietude of mind, the 
horrors of want, and the wrecks of mis- 
chance, a good name poisoned by the 
breath of slander, the fairest hopes blasted 
by disappointment, relations and friends 
torn from our tenderest embrace, and a suc- 
cession of nameless adversities, which thick- 
en as we proceed, fill up the measure of 
man's miserable life. Surely a ship does 
not more require a pilot in the midst of a 
storm, or an army a general in the heat of 
battle, than we do patience under these and 
the like embarrassments. Patience, by 
keeping our minds cool and steady under 
the pressure of calamity, prevents all inward 
tumult and confusion, harsh conclusions, 
rash thoughts, or hasty language. 

This placid disposition bows implicitly 
to all the dispensations of God with lowli- 
est reverence, nor will ever allow us to 

c c 



290 ' PATIENCE. 

think him unkind or unfaithful, whatever 
his wisdom may withhold, or his justice 
inflict. It suppresses all murmuring and 
repining under the severest trials, or in the 
hottest conflicts, and whatever we feel or 
fear, is a sovereign remedy and help at hand. 
In the gloomiest, most mysterious, and 
most alarming appearances, which for the 
wisest ends divine Providence may assume, 
even when clouds and darkness are round 
the Almighty's throne, patience reposeth 
with confidence in his goodness, and cast- 
eth all our cares on his bosom and on his 
arm, on that arm which bears up the uni- 
verse, and that bosom which cherishes the 
good. While we rely with patience on his 
protection, it will never be withdrawn ; 
and whatever our engagements, our dangers, 
or necessities should be, he will always 
step forth for our relief when it is wisest for 
him and best for us. 



PATIENCE. 291 



EXPECTATION. 

The necessity of cultivating and maturing 
this divine principle by indefatigable exer- 
cise, strongly app^ears from that anxious 
concern with . which we naturally regard 
futurity. Of this aptitude, the pursuits of 
life, the interference of other passions, levi- 
ty, listlessness, or apathy, may occasion- 
ally rid us, but it is only for a moment. 
And in that brief interval, it gathers 
strength, and returns in fresh vigour with 
every disposition to seriousness, and takes 
full possession of the heart. Nothing can 
wholly prevent even the most giddy and 
dissolute from sometimes thinking on 
what may happen, and a kind of involun- 
tary anticipation of all the possibilities of an 
endless destination seizes almosj every 
mind, in almost every situation. Guilt has 
never been able to bar the intrusions of 
this unw^elcome guest, and virtue without 
its visits could not exist. Thus the same 



292 PATIENCE. 

fountain, according to the different disposi- 
tions of such as receive it, sends forth both 
sweet waters and bitter. Those, however, 
to whom it is a perpetual spring of the 
strongest consolation, would certainly lose 
much of the satisfaction they derive from 
its infiuence, but for the exercise of pa- 
tience. 

Even in the i>etty concerns of the world, 
which have always more of our hearts than 
they deserve, or than is consistent with our 
comfort or quiet, to spare, this excellent 
virtue tei^ches many lessons of the sound- 
est wisdom. Without such a monitor, 
what might we not suffer from the apathy, 
the levity, and the contempt to which our 
fondest anxieties for others welfare, or our 
own, are sometimes exposed? How pain- 
ful is the mind in a state of suspension be- 
tween the palpitations of hope and despair ! 
Few with whom Providence intrusts the 
patronage of fortune are possessed with effi- 
cient sympathy, careful what expectations 
they raise, or aware on what trivial indul- 
gences the wretched are tempted to pre- 



PATIENCE. 2^3 

SLime. Little do they consider, who thus 
sport with the sensrbihties of the unfortu- 
nate, what a bitter pill disappointment is, 
and how difficult to swallow, especially 
when tendered by the hand accustomed per- 
haps to bless them beyond their hopes. 
Thank God, his commiseration and bounty 
are in no degree affected by the fickleness 
or whimsicality of such as show abundant 
kindness oiie day, and as much hardness of 
heart another. In the present state of un- 
certainty, irregularity, and apprehension, 
there want not circumstances, which, to se- 
rious minds, are peculiarly startling and 
alarming. The promises on which we place 
our dependence, are altogether spiritual and 
' remote. And which of them does not in- 
volve conditions, which a consciousness of 
imperfection renders almost insuperable? 
The devil, the w^orld, and the flesh inter- 
cept the finest prospects religion spreads be- 
fore us. We know the magnitude of the 
prize, but feel also our own impotence. 
Nothing but patience can effectually melio- 

c c2 



294 PATIENCE. 

rate all our doubts, and confute the most fri- 
gid suggestions of diffidence and timidity. 
It is not what we now possess, but what we 
expect in due time to realize, that fills us at 
present with joy and peace in believing^ 
The glorious things, to which we thus look 
forward, with so much solicitude and eager- 
ness, are not always granted according to 
our wishes, but for the most part, and to 
suit the mysterious ends of Providence, 
postponed. Eternal life in particular, which 
comprehends the whole of what is called in 
scripture the great recompense of reward^ is 
reserved for consummating the happiness 
of Heaven. 

But how could we support ourselves, in 
the mean time, under the dereliction of all 
this blessedness, but for the gracious re- 
sources of patience? This kind comforter, 
whose gentle voice becalms our ruffled spi- 
rits, and bids the tumult of passion be still, 
is never distant when trouble is near. It 
pledges for our security his declaration who 
cannot lie. It shows that our faith and hope 



PATIENCE, 295 

are alike bottomed in divine veracity and 
faithtulness. It refers to tlie unchangeable- 
ness of Deity for a complete answer to all the 
surmises of inquietude. Here it rests, as on 
a foundation more solid and durable than the 
basis which sustains the universe. 

Associated with this conviction, patience 
triumphs over all the concomitants of mis- 
fortune and contingency. Inspired by a 
faith thus rational, and a patience thus firm, 
what, on this side of the grave, can be an ob- 
ject of terror, or on the other, does not fill 
us with hope? Whatever should be the fi- 
nal issue of all things, our happiness cannot 
be frustrated. 

While in this world every carnal depend- 
ence may fail. We may lose our health, 
our reason, and our substance. Fortune 
may abandon the richest to indigence. 
The warmest friendship is not always proof 
against the foulest treachery. The philan- 
thropy of the best benefactors on earth, sel- 
dom keeps pace with the reiterated impor- 
tunity even of innocence distressed. We 
may amass wealth, and yet remain poor. 



296 PATIENCE. 

We may climb the steeps of ambition^ at 
the risk of our lives, and only get inianiy. 
We may gulp sensuality with the greediness 
of the grave, and know not that the draught 
is mortal. What is the highest honour but 
air, which is often lost in the grasping; 
riches but earth, which sink in the digging ; 
and pleasures but shadows, which fly as fast 
as pursued? 

Of this only we are certain, that the 
profits of a good life are infallible, and that 
the pleasures conferred by virtue are the 
pleasures of the heart, always new, always 
natural, and always at command. To the 
ultimate result of true holiness, connected 
with a well-established faith in the immuta- 
bility of the Godliead, patience resorts in 
every extremity, as to a strong hold, as sta- 
ble and substantial as the throne of Hea- 
ven ! And what in life or death, things pre- 
sent or things to come, can shake his con- 
fidence or defeat his hope, who lives and 
acts in full assurance, that the everlasting 
God the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the 
earthy fainteth not, neither is weary ! 



PATIENCE. 297 

Heaven and earth are interested in his 
happiness, whose mind is thus formed 
and composed. He may be troubled, but 
cannot be cast down. Tlie world, because 
it does not know, may depreciate his worth, 
but he has overcome the world. He can 
accommodate himself to his lot, though he 
cannot controul it. He may be poor, and 
destitute, and forlorn, but he cannot be 
contemptible. It is nqt in the power of 
misfortune to prevent his principles and 
virtues from rendering him respectable. 
Though neglected by the proud, though 
abandoned by the opulent, though impelled 
by contingencies to depart in many instan- 
ces from the rigid formalities of unthinking 
life, though reduced by affliction and adver- 
sity to debility and want, though the breath 
of malice, or the stroke of death, should 
blast the sweetest prospects which may have 
flattered and fed his hopes, though envy 
may nibble at his comforts, and slander 
blacken his fame, though distress in all its 
angriest forms, like a mighty tempest rag- 
ing from every point of th^ compass, should 



298 PATIENCE. 

beset his peace, possessing his soul in pati- 
ence^ he resigns himself to Heaven, and to 
Heaven commits, in perfect and tranquil 
confidence, the keeping of all his concerns. 

See him distinguished, in every part of 
his conduct, by the sweetest serenity of 
temper, peaceable at all times, gentle in all 
things, meek in heart, mild in spirit, and 
lowly in life. In his humble demeanor, 
and under his lowly roof, all the virtues as- 
sociate. It is in his dwelling, that the me- 
lody of goodness, humanity, and love, peace 
of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, friend- 
ship with God, and the enlivening hope of 
Heaven, m.ay always be heard. For this 
melody the worthless, or minds absorbed 
in sensual pursuits, have no more relish, 
than the blind for beauty they cannot see, or 
the deaf for music they cannot hear j but to 
the pious and good it is always sweet 
enough to make a heaven upon earth. 

Who can tell how happy and satisfied 
from himself that man is, who actually eji- 
joys the constant approbation of his own 
heart? He is blessed in his going out and 



PATIENCE. 299 

his coming in. The great God hath sealed 
or consecrated him to the day of redemption, 
and shall openly challenge him as his, in the 
day when he maketh up his jewels. He 
will be known and distinguished then, as he 
is now, by dealing with men as he wor- 
ships God, in the beauty of holiness — by 
that order which regulates all his affairs^ 
and is the governing principle in all he 
does — by that heart- felt content which con- 
stitutes his own felicity, and the felicity 
of every one about him — by that honest 
hospitality which presses even the stranger, 
and him who hath no helper, to partake of 
his comforts and his bounty — by that libe- 
rality which extends to men of every cli- 
mate and complexion the embrace of a bro- 
ther — by that charity which is kind, which 
lifts up the head that hangs down, which 
binds up the broken hearted, which even 
weeps over the wounds which it cannot 
heal ! 

Well done ^ thou good and faithful servant ^ 
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! 



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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2005 

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